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I      Dante  Gabriel  Rossetti. 


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A  Dissertation  presented 

to  the 

Philosophical  Faculty  of  the  University  of  |  Zurich 

for  the 

Acquisition  of  the  Degree 

of 
Doctor  of  Philosophy 

by 

J.  C.  E.  Bassalik-de  Vries. 


from  Zwolle  (Holland). 
Approved  by  Prof.  Dr.  Th.  Vetter. 


BASEL 

Buchdruckerei  Brin  &  Cie. 

1911. 


William  Blake 

in  his  Relation  to 

Dante  Gabriel  Rossetti. 


In  the  memoir  on  Dante  Gabriel  Rossetti  which  precedes 
the  family  letters  of  this  poet*),  William  M.  Rossetti  tells  us  that  his 
brother  had  procured  a  manuscript  book  with  the  poems  of  William 
Blake  from  an  attendant  in  the  British  Museum  in  the  month  of 
April  1847.  "He  then  proceeded",  William  Rossetti  goes  on,  "to  copy- 
out  across  a  confused  tangle  of  false  starts,  alternative  forms 
and  cancelling  all  the  poetry  in  the  book,  and  I  did  the  same  lor 
the  prose.  His  ownership  of  this  truly  precious  volume**)  stimu- 
lated in  some  degree  his  disregard  or  scorn  of  some  aspects  of 
art  held  in  reverence  by  dilettante  and  routine  students  and  thus 
conduced  to  the  Praeraphaelitic  Movement;  for  he  found  here 
the  most  (and  no  doubt  the  most  irrational)  epigrams  and  jeers 
against  such  painters  as  Correggio,  Titian,  Rubens,  Rembrandt, 
Reynolds,  and  Gainsborough.  They  were  balsam  to  Dante 
Gabriel  Rossetti's  soul  and  grist  to  his  mill".  Thus  far  William 
M.  Rossetti,  and  undoubtedly  the  finding  of  this  little  booklet 
has  exercised  a  great  influence  on  his  brother  and  through  him 
indeed  conduced  much  to  the  Praeraphaelitic  movement.  However  this 
influence  was  exercised  not  only  on  account  of  its  sharp  criticism  on 
the  Venetian  and  Flemish  schools  of  painting,  but  more  because  of 
its  simple  and  naive  poems  with  their  strange  metres,  through  its  weird 
pictures  and  the  daring  doctrines  it  put  forth,  and  most  of  all  through 
the  spirit  of  mysticism  which  breathes  through  the  whole  and  gives 
it  such  a  wonderful  charm.  Like  German  Romanticism  the  Prae- 
raphaelitic movement  was  a  revolt  against  the  prosaic  acceptance, 
pseudo-classicism,  and  thoughtless  imitation  of  the  foregoing 
century,  and  as   such,    as    it   were   an   aftergrowth    of   the  great 

*)  W.  M.  Rossetti,  Dante  Gabriel  Rossetti,  his  Family  Letters. 
London  1895. 

**)  At  the  sale  of  Dante  Gabriel  Rossetti's  effects  this  little  book 
fetched  over  one  hundred  guineas.  Recollections  of  D.  G.  Rossetti  and 
his  Circle  by  Henry  F.  Dunn  (Chapter  III).    London  1804. 


romantic  school  in  Germany,  its  distinguishing  feature  was  its 
mysticism,  which  can  be  traced  through  all  the  works  of  the 
Praeraphaelites,  be  they  literary  or  artistic.  Already  in  some 
later  works  of  the  German  Romantics,  e.  g.  in  the  second  part 
of  Goethe's  Faust  and  in  Hoffmann's  Erzahlungen,  mystic  ideas 
are  interwoven;  but  what  I  may  perhaps  term  "modern  mysticism", 
to  distinguish  it  from  the  Catholic  mysticism  of  the  Middle  Ages, 
found  its  true  development  in  the  literary  and  artistic  productions 
of  the  Praeraphaelitic  school;  and  the  great  fore-runner  of  this 
school  was  William  Blake.  In  the  following  pages  I  will  try  to 
examine  somewhat  closer  than  has  been  done  up  to  now  wherein 
this  influence  existed  and  in  how  far  Blake  really  conduced  to  the 
Praeraphaelitic  movement. 

Indeed,  beyond  the  mere  acknowledgement  that  such  an 
influence  did  exist  I  found  nowhere  a  single  effort  for  a  some- 
what thorough  investigation.  I  think  that  it  suffices  for  this  pur- 
pose when  I  show  the  influence  Blake  has  exercised  on  Dante 
Gabriel  Rossetti.  Not  because  he  was  the  greatest  of  the 
Praeraphaelites,*)  for  indeed  G.  F.  Watts**)  far  excelled  him  as  a 
painter,  creating  new  myths,  whereas  Rossetti's  genius  con- 
centrated itself  principally  in  the  reproduction  of  single  female 
figures;  Robert  Browning  was  a  greater  poet;  Holman  Hunt 
remained  faithful  in  all  his  works  to  the  rules  laid  down  in  their 
first  assemblies;  Dante  Gabriel  Rossetti,  not  even  in  the  religious 
period  of  his  art,  stuck  to  the  rules  he  himself  had  laid  down 
with   so   much   ardour.     And   I   think   it  was  J.  E.  Millais,  who 

*)  When  I  talk  of  Praeraphaelites  I  mean  this  school  in  its  widest 
sense.  Robert  Browning  belongs  to  it  because  of  his  great  love  for  the 
Italian  art  as  well  as  for  the  minute  carefulness  he  displays  in  his  des- 
criptions, but  most  of  all  because  of  the  ajreat  stress  he  lies  on  the  study 
of  soul.  "Little  else",  he  writes,  "than  the  development  of  a  soul  is  worth 
study"  (Preface  of  Sordello).  Others  like  G.  F.  Watts  and  Burne-Jones, 
though  only  for  a  time  painting  under  the  Praeraphaelitic  banner,  I  mclude 
as  well,  as  F.  Madox  Brown,  Ch.  Collins,  A.  Hughes,  and  many  others  of 
lesser  note.  It  seems  that  the  row  closes  with  Byam  Shaw's  picture  Love's 
Baubles  and  that  he  is  the  last  of  all  those  who  painted  or  wrote  under 
the  influence  of  the  Praeraphaelitic  school. 

**)  Even  in  his  Praeraphaelitic  period. 


showed  himself  the  greater  painter  with  his  "Lorenzo  and 
Isabella",  at  the  same  time  the  most  typical  Praeraphaelitic  picture. 
It  has  the  hard  outline  and  glowing  colours  of  the  quattrocento 
paintings,  at  the  same  time  the  dreadful  spiritual  love  of  Isabella 
hints,  though  it  has  an  awful  ascetic  power,  at  the  perversity 
of  E.  A.  Poe,  or  perhaps  O.  Wilde's  Salome.  For  it  was  that 
part  of  the  Middle  Ages  which  the  Praeraphaelites  have  tried  to 
render,  in  which  souls  were  very  pale  but  filled  with  hot  desires, 
in  which  the  lust  of  the  senses  mixed  with  the  prayers  of  the 
mystics,  and  in  which  the  anticipated  joys  of  heaven  were  not  so 
great  as  the  earthly  miseries.  It  was  a  dream  of  the  Middle 
Ages  full  of  melancholy,  sensuousness,  and  glowing  colours,  and 
as  I  said  above,  it  was  not  Dante  Gabriel  Rossetti  in  whose  works 
more  than  in  those  of  all  representatives  of  this  school  its  most 
typical  qualities  were  united.  Although  not  the  greatest  nor  the 
most  typical  of  the  Praeraphaelites,  yet  his  influence  has  been 
the  greatest,  because  he  was  by  far  the  strongest  personality 
and  the  greatest  intellectual  force.  On  all  the  persons  who 
came  in  contact  with  him  he  made  a  great  impression;  some  of 
them  remained  under  his  influence  for  the  rest  of  their  careers, 
others  were  only  spell-bound  for  a  short  while  by  the  brilliancy 
of  his  talk  and  the  power  of  his  strong  mind;  on  all  these  his 
influence  has  had  a  lasting  effect. 

William  M.  Rossetti  tells  us  how  already  as  a  mere  boy  his 
brother  was  impetuous  and  vehement  and  essentially  of  a  dominant 
turn  in  intellect,  and  a  leader  in  temperament.  Ruskin  says  of 
Dante  Gabriel  Rossetti:  "I  believe  Rossetti's  name  should  be 
placed  first  on  the  list  of  men  within  my  own  range  of  know- 
ledge who  have  raised  and  changed  the  spirit  of  modern  art; 
raised  in  absolute  attainment,  changed  in  direction  of  temper." 
And  elsewhere:  "Rossetti  was  the  chief  intellectual  force  in  the 
modern  romantic  school  of  England".*;  Holman  Hunt  mentions 
his  power  of  inspiring  enthusiasm  and  making  proselytes,  a  power 
which  according  to  H.  Hunt  he  seems  to  have  exercised  to  an 
inconvenient  extent  and  to  which  Hunt  himself  was  compelled  to 

♦)  See  Benson,  Life  of  Rossetti.    London  1904.    Chapter  VII. 


X 


—     6     — 

yield  in  spite  of  himself.  And  of  Burne-Jones  a  pretty  little 
anecdote  has  been  told  which  perhaps  brings  out  more  than 
anything  else  the  fascinating  power  of  Rossetti's  genius.  It  is 
said  that  a  critic  looking  at  a  picture  of  Burne-Jones  remarked 
that  it  was  merely  an  imitation  of  Rossetti.  "And  if  so",  the  artist 
answered,  "I  am  quite  content  to  imitate  Gabriel".  It  was  this 
ascendency  over  others  to  which  were  added  great  capacity  for 
criticism,  so  rare  in  artists,  an  unselfish  delight  in  the  work  of 
others,  a  splendid  memory  for  any  poetry  which  had  won  his 
admiration,  and  "a  voice  rarely  equalled  for  simple  recitations" 
(Hunt)  which  made  Dante  Gabriel  Rossetti  the  soul  of  the  Prae- 
raphaelitic  movement  and  earned  for  him  the  name  of  Father  of 
Praeraphaelitism,  bestowed  upon  him  by  William  Sharp  in  his 
''Life  of  Rossetti",  1883.  And  it  could  not  be,  but  that  the  bend 
of  Rossetti's  genius  was  the  dominating  power  of  the  Praeraphae- 
litic  movement,  and  that  the  influence  which  exercised  its  power 
on  Dante  Gabriel  Rossetti  was  the  influence  to  which  all  other 
Praeraphaelites  were  subjected. 

The  influence  which  William  Blake  exercised  on  Dante  Gabriel 
Rossetti  was  of  a  three-fold  nature.     He  owes  much  to  him: 

a)  as  a  philosopher, 

b)  as  a  poet, 

c)  as  a  painter. 

It  was  however,  as  I  mentioned  above,  Blake's  mysticism, 
by  which  Dante  Gabriel  Rossetti  was  mostly  impressed,  and 
therefore  I  shall  speak  of  this  influence  in  the  first  place.  It  should, 
however,  be  borne  in  mind  that  Blake's  philosophic  doctrines 
were  laid  down  in  a  literary  and  in  an  artistic  form,  viz:  in  his 
poems  and  in  his  pictures,  and  that  therefore  it  is  often  very 
difficult  and  sometimes  impossible  to  separate  Blake  the  philo- 
sopher from  Blake  the  artist  or  the  poet,  so  that  when  I  make 
this  division  for  the  sake  of  clearness  and  discuss  successively 
Blake's  influence  from  a  philosophical,  literary,  and  artistic  point 
of  view,  these  influences  must  not  be  thought  of  as  existing  iso- 
lated,  but  as   continually   supporting  and   correcting  each  other. 


-    7 


Influence  of  W.  Blake's  Philosophy. 

As  a  philosopher  William  Blake  is  a  pupil  of  Emanuel 
Swedenborg,  the  Swedish  mystic  whose  many  religious  books 
appeared  between  the  years  1745  and  1771.  Already  as  a  child 
William  Blake  had  adopted  many  of  the  doctrines  of  Sweden- 
borg  on  mere  hearsay.  His  father,  an  Irish  dissenter,  as 
Alexander  Gilchrist  (1828—61,  Blake's  biographer)  calls  him, 
and  his  eldest  brother  James  were  both  ardent  followers  of 
Swedenborg.  The  principal  doctrine  which  Blake  never  abandoned, 
which  was  more  and  more  approved  of  by  his  imagination,  which 
was  constantly  affirmed  by  his  visions,  changed  every  idea  that  he 
otherwise  would  have  found  in  religion,  and  affected  the  stan- 
dard of  his  poetry,  was  Swedenborg's  doctrine  of  universal 
correspondence.  This  theory  teaches  that  bodies  are  the 
generation  and  expression  of  souls ;  it  makes  all  things  into  signs 
as  well  as  powets,  and  the  smallest  things  as  well  as  the  grea- 
test are  omens,  warnings,  and  instructions.  In  his  book  the 
"Doctrine  of  the  Sacred  Scripture"  Swedenborg  gives  the  follow- 
ing explanation  about  the  meaning  of  correspondences.  From 
the  Lord  proceed  three  degrees:  the  Celestial,  the  Spiritual,  and 
the  Natural,  one  after  another.  What  proceeds  from  the  divine 
love  is  called  celestial,  what  proceeds  from  the  divine  wisdom 
is  called  spiritual;  the  natural  is  from  both  and  is  their  complex 
in  the  ultimate.  The  divine  which  comes  down  from  the  Lord 
to  men  descends  through  these  degrees  and  contains  these  three 
degrees  in  it;  these  degrees  are  entirely  distinct  from  one  another 
like  end,  cause,  and  effect  and  yet  make  one  by  correspondence; 
for  the  natural  corresponds  to  the  spiritual  and  also  to  the 
celestial.  The  "Word"  is  written  in  the  style  of  the  Prophets 
and  the  Evangelists,  which,  though  it  appear  common,  yet  con- 
ceals within  it  all  divine  and  angelic  wisdom  "Each  and  all 
things  in  nature  correspond  to  spiritual  things." 


-     8 

The  idea  that  the  Bible  was  a  sacred  code  written  by 
inspiration  which  only  men  who  were  inspired  by  visions  from 
Heaven  like  Swedenborg  (Arcana  Coelestia)  and  himself*)  could 
interpret,  was  taken  up  and  adopted  by  Blake  also  in  regard  to  the 
highest  utterances  of  poetry;  the  only  way  in  which  the  different  degrees 
of  correspondence  could  be  expressed  was  by  means  of  allegory 
and  symbols,  in  which  every  word,  or  in  drawing  every  design, 
had  a  second  or  perhaps  a  third  hidden  meaning.  "Allegory 
addressed  to  the  intellectual  powers  while  it  is  altogether  hidden 
from  the  corporeal  understanding  is  my  definition  of  the  most 
sublime  poetry",  Blake  writes  in  a  letter  to  Thomas  Butts,  1803. 
Such  allegory  is  found  in  all  Blake's  poems  and  fills  the  Pro- 
phetic Books;  it  forms  the  greatest  attraction  of  Blake's  engra- 
vings, though  no  longer  "hidden  from  all  corporeal  understanding", 
since  in  1893  a  complete  edition  of  Blake's  works  appeared, 
edited  by  E.  G.  Ellis  and  W.  B.  Yeats,  who  show  us  in  an 
elaborate  treatise  that  a  consistent  system  underlies  Blake's 
writings,  that  his  message,  though  very  complex,  claims  to  be 
only  a  personal  statement  of  universal  truth ;  a  system  to  deliver 
men  from  systems.  Much  has  been  made  clear  by  their  ingenious 
explanation,  but  for  all  that  the  Prophetic  Books  remain  dim  and 
chaotic  as  dreams,  their  imaginative  and  coherent  thought-structure 
fails  in  carrying  conviction  with  it. 

From  Swedenborg**)  Blake  also  took  the  belief  in  the 
angels;  the  angelic  wisdom,  the  occupations  of  the  angels,  their 
being  the  exact  counterpart  of  men,  and  many  interesting  parti- 
culars of  the  angelic  world;  here  Blake  goes  beyond  Swedenborg 
in  accepting  the  existence  of  evil  spirits;  he  says:  "Swedenborg 
received  his  teaching  from  angels  only,  while  he  ought  to  have 
consulted  devils  also",  therefore  his  teaching  shall  be  "as  the 
linen  clothes  folded  up".  For,  and  here  we  touch  another  key- 
note  of   Blake's   teaching,    "without   contraries   there    is  no  pro- 

*)  Blake  had  visions  from  the  time  of  his  youth  when  he  was  once 
set  screaming  by  the  appearance  of  our  Lord;  and  these  visions  never  left 
him  unto  the  time  of  his  death. 

**)  Swedenborg,  Divine  Love  and  Wisdom;  Heaven  and  Hell. 


-      9     — 

gression".  Blake  is  a  passionate  preacher  of  moral  and  political 
freedom  and  repels  all  the  coercive  devices  of  the  formalist  as 
well  as  the  regulative  distinction  between  right  and  wrong  of 
the  moralist.  Man  is  law  to  himself.  "Nor  is  it  possible  to 
thought  a  greater  than  itself  to  know".  The  divine  human  body 
may  not  be  divided  into  two  parts,  body  and  soul,  labelling  the 
one  as  evil  the  other  as  good  (The  voices  of  the  devil.  Marriage 
of  Heaven  and  Hell).  In  his  Books  of  America  and  Europe  he 
expands  on  the  triumph  of  free  love  and  throughout  all  Blake's 
works  we  find,  that  he  preaches  free  indulgence  in  all  bodily 
desires,  though  always  with  a  sub-idea  that  only  in  this  way  the 
spirit  can  be  made  free. 

"Abstinence  sows  sand  all  over 

The  ruddy  limbs  and  flowing  hair; 

But  desire  gratified 

Plants  fruits  of  life  and  beauty  there." 

(Couplets  and  Fragments.) 

**He  who  desires  but  acts  not  breeds  pestilence." 

(Marriage  of  Heaven  and  Hell.) 

^^Does  not  the  worm  erect  a  pillar  in  the  mouldering  churchyard 
And  a  palace  of  Eternity  in  the  jaws  of  the  hungry  grave? 
Over  his  porch  these  words  are  written 
Take  thy  bliss,  Oh  Man!" 

(Daughters  of  Albion.) 

These  can  serve  as  examples  for  the  fore-going  and 
I  could  find  ever  so  many  more,  for  Blake  likes  to  repeat  his 
favourite  doctrines  again  and  again  under  different  i'orms.  Sweden- 
borg  does  not  preach  these  extreme  views,  but  Blake  was  not 
the  first  mystic,  who  held  the  opinion  that  the  desires  of  the 
body  had  a  right  to  be  indulged  in.  There  existed  a  religious 
sect,  who  called  themselves  "Brethren  of  the  free  spirit",  they 
were  adherents  to  the  principle  that  unless  the  lusts  of  the  body 
be  satisfied,  the  spirit  cannot  be  raised  to  the  heights  of  its  true 
development.  And  it  is  not  impossible  that  Blake  in  his  vast 
reading  had  come  across  this  theory  and  adopted  it  as  his  own. 


—     10     — 

Like  Swedenborg,  Blake  believed  in  the  "Grand  Man".  Sweden- 
borg  says  in  "Arcana  Coelestia",  his  most  famous  book  (1749-56), 
"the  whole  Heaven  is  a  Grand  Man  (Maximus  Homo)  and  it  is 
called  a  Grand  Man,  because  it  corresponds  to  the  Lord's  divine 
Human;  and  by  so  much  as  an  angel  or  spirit  or  a  man  on 
earth  has  from  the  Lord,  they  also  are  men  ....  All  things  in 
the  human  body,  in  general  and  particular,  correspond  most  exactly 
to  the  Grand  Man  and  as  it  were  to  so  many  societies  there." 
The  same  idea  of  a  composite  individual  Blake  puts  forth  in  the 
prophetic  Book  Jerusalem: 

^We  live  as  one  man,  for,  contracting  our  infinite  senses 

We  behold  multitudes,  or  expanding  we  behold  as  one, 

As  one  Man  all  the  universal  family  and  that  one  man 

We  call  Jesus  the  Christ." 

Besides  this  one  Man,  the  Divine  Saviour,  there  were  lesser 
"composites",  called  '•^states",  these  come  into  existence  when 
imagination  in  the  person  of  some  imaginative  man  perceives 
them,  as  sound  comes  into  existence  when  we  hear  it  and  light 
when  we  see  it. 

••'•We  are  not  individuals  but  states, 
Combinations  of  individuals." 

(Milton,  Book  II.) 

''Man  passes  on,  but  states  remain  for  ever,  he  passes 
through    them    like  the  traveller  who  may  as  well  suppose 
that   the   places  he  has  passed  through   exist   no   more,  as 
a  man    may  suppose  that  the  states  he  has  passed  through 
exist  no  more." 

(Last  Judgment.) 

In  his  youth  Blake  racked  his  mind  over  the  riddle  of  human 
existence.  In  the  Book  of  Thel,  which  forms  a  transition  between 
his  lyrical  poems  and  his  prophetic  books,  he  laments  the  limi- 
tations of  the  flesh  All  other  animate  and  inanimate  things 
seem  happy  in  the  conscious  discharge  of  their  earthly  duties; 
why  does  man  alone  suffer  from  a  perversion   of   the  senses  by 


—    11    — 

some  tyrannical   law?     Why   should  he  put  a  restraint  upon  his 
natural  enjoyments? 

"Why  cannot  the  ear  be  closed  to  its  own  destruction? 

Or  the  glistening  eye  to  the  passion  of  a  smile  — 

Why  a  tongue  impressed  with  honey  from  every  wind; 

Why  a  nostril  wide  inhaling  terror  trembling  and  affright? 

Why  a  tender  curb  upon  the  youthful  burning  boy?"  etc. 

Soon  however  this  spirit  of  doubt  is  taken  from  Blake.  The 
immemorial  struggle  between  the  body  and  the  soul,  the  man 
principle  and  the  woman  principle,  Satan  and  the  redeeming 
powers,  the  cause  of  all  human  suffering  is  the  result  of  the  fall 
of  mankind;  a  fall  from  a  hermaphroditic  state  into  generative 
life,  from  the  kingdom  of  Imagination,  the  celestial,  into  the 
natural  world,  the  vegetative.  This  division  of  mankind  into 
sexual  life  tended  to  a  closing  up  of  men  into  separate  selfhoods; 
each  selfhood  was  guilty  of  error,  and  gradually  the  inlets  through 
which  communication  with  the  universal  spirit,  the  eternal  ima- 
gination, were  maintained,  were  dried  up;  the  senses  were  mostly 
used  for  the  natural  world  only. 

'  One  day  the  world  was  a  Paradise 

And  Imaginatioj  was  its  principal  Goddess." 

"If  the  doors  of  perception  were  cleansed,  everything 
would  appear  to  men  as  it  is:  infinite.     For  man  has 
closed  himself  up  until  he  sees  all  things  through 
the  narrow  chinks  in  his  cavern". 

(A  memorable  Fancy.) 

It  is  now  his,  Blake's  mission  in  life,  to  lead  man  back 
to  the  golden  age  in  which  imagination  reigned  supreme  and  the 
reasoning  powers  of  man  were  kept  in  proper  subjection.  In  his 
prophetic  Book  ^-Jerusalem",  he  calls  it  his  great  task  "to  open 
the  eternal  worlds,  to  open  the  eternal  eyes  of  Man  inwards^ 
into  the  worlds  of  thought,  into  eternity,  ever  expanding  in  the 
bosom  of  God,  the  human  Imagination."  The  redeeming  powers 
of  mankind  are  love  and  imaginative  art. 


—     12     — 

"No  one  knows  what  the  life  of  man  is,  unless  he 
knows  that  it  is  love." 

(Margical  notes  to  Swedenborg's 
'•^Angelic  Wisdom".) 

In  nearly  all  his  poems  he  sings  of  love  in  one  of  its  many 
aspects;  in  the  "Songs  of  Innocence"  the  divine  love  is  dwelled 
upon  in  The  Lamb,  The  Divine  Image,  On  Another's  Sorrow. 
In  the  Songs  of  Experience  Love  appears  in  its  earthly  garb, 
the  temptations  and  struggles  of  love  are  put  forth. 

"For  tJie  strife  of  Love  is  the  abysmal  strife, 
And  the  word  of  Love  is  the  word  of  life." 

He  likes  to  dwell  on  the  contrast  of  divine  and  human 
love.  In  his  poem  the  Clod  and  the  Pebble,  or  in  William  Bond, 
a  very  mystical  poem  interpreted  in  a  different  way  by  Edwin  J. 
Ellis,  Charles  A.  Swinburne,  and  other  Blake  commentators,  the 
last  two  stanzas  are: 

"I  thought  Love  lived  in  the  hot  sunshine. 
But  oh,  he  lives  in  the  moony  light! 
I  thought  Love  lived  in  the  heat  of  day. 
But  sweet  Love  is  the  comforter  of  night.    ' 

Seek  Love  in  the  pity  of  others'  woe, 

In  the  gentle  relief  of  another's  care. 

In  the  darkness  of  night  and  the  winter's  snow. 

In  the  naked  and  outcast,  seek  Love  there! 

And  in  his  Prophetic  Books,  he,  to  use  his  own  words, 
does  nothing  but 

"Weaves  into  dreams  the  sexual  strife 
And  mourns  over  the  web  of  life." 

At  Blake's  death  many  unpublished,  or  rather  unknown 
Mss.  were  found,  but  Frederick  Tatham,  considering  these  to 
lessen   the   fame   of   his   friend   by   the   heretical   opinions   they 


—     13    — 

expressed,  destroyed  them,*)  and  thus  we  find  Blake's  philosophic 
system  incomplete.  I  think,  however,  that  we  know  enough  of 
it  such  as  we  find  it,  that  in  his  turbulent  evangile,  doctrines  of 
the  most  opposed  abstract  systems  confront  each  other,  and  that 
his  beliefs,  however  positive  to  himself  for  the  time  he  enter- 
tained them,  were  fluctuating  and  shitting,  and  that  the  only 
ideas  which  pretty  constantly  show  forth  in  strong  relief  are  the 
few  I  singled  out  in  the  foregoing  pages. 

Of  these  ideas  Blake  has  taken  most,  as  I  have  shown,  from 
Swedenborg,  who  had  written  them  in  his  many  books  with  great  care 
and  lucidity  earlier  in  the  century.  But  Blake's  thoroughly  artistic 
temperament  conceived  the  notion,  that  the  old  truths  wanted  to  be 
said  in  a  new  form  to  bring  them  home  to  mankind,  and  that  the  mystic 
truths  should  be  expressed  through  the  medium  of  the  fine  Arts. 
Up  to  now,  mysticism  had  laid  down  her  principles  dogmatically 
in  the  language  of  the  Church.  From  being  theological  the 
language  became  literary  and  poetical,  and  where  words  could 
not  express  the  abstractions  of  the  heavenly  visions,  Blake,  in 
whose  mind  the  most  abstract  notions  crystallised  into  shapes, 
made  sketches  and  drawings  of  these  visions,  such  as  he  had 
them  before  his  'mental  eyes."  That  the  result  of  these  procee 
dings  was  startlingly  original  can  be  easily  conceived;  already 
by  this  sole  reason  Blake's  works  must  have  had  great  attraction 
for  Dante  Gabriel  Rossetti.  For  he  loved  everything  out  of  the 
Common  and  had  a  natural  inclination  for  the  supernatural 
and  marvellous.  As  early  as  1843  he  wrote  a  ballad  Sir 
Hugh  the  Heron,  an  imitation  of  W.  Scott  which,  though 
very  unripe  and  of  no  value,  shows  Dante  Gabriel  Rossetti's 
love  for  the  mysterious.  And  in  the  following  pages  we  will 
consider  in  detail  the  influence  in  which  this  attraction  resulted. 
For  as  Blake  was  a  man  of  genius  both  as  a  poet  and  as 
a  painter,  it  could  not  be  but  that  his  works  won  the  life- 
long admiration  of  Dante  Gabriel  Rossetti  and   influenced  nearly 

*)  According  to  Mrs.  Gilchrist,  to  whom  Tatham  himself  orally 
communicated  this  fact.  Helen  Richter  (William  Blake,  1906,  page  393)  does 
not  believe  in  the  loss  of  many  Mss. 


—     14     -- 

everything  he  produced.  There  is,  however,  a  great  difference 
between  the  mysticism  of  Blake  and  Rossetti.  This  difference 
lies  in  the  fact,  that  th e  religious  side  of  mysticism  never 
affected  Dante  Gabriel  Rossetti. 

Always  the  artistic  side  of  Blake's  mysticism  appealed  to 
him;  in  later  life  he  accepted  some  of  its  moral-philosophical 
doctrines;  as  a  religious  system  it  never  was  of  the  slightest 
value  to  him. 

William  Blake  was  a  fervent  Christian  and  a  man  of  great 
faith  throughout  his  life.  Never  once  he  despaired  of  his  mission, 
never  he  doubted  of  the  heavenly  origin  of  his  visions,  or  of 
his  writings.  "I  may  praise  them,  since  I  dare  not  pretend  to 
be  other  than  the  secretary,  the  authors  are  in  Eternity",  Blake 
writes  in  a  letter  to  Thomas  Butts  1802  about  the  Prophetic 
books.  And  though  poverty  and  want  are  at  his  door,  he  never 
makes  concessions  in  order  to  see  his  books  printed  and  earn 
a  little  money.  With  infinite  patience  and  care  he  continues 
writing  down  his  weird  fancies  and  illuminating  them  with  his 
■fantastic  drawings.  Quite  pathetic  is  the  way  in  which  he  gives 
himself  some  poor  bits  of  consolation  for  his  worldly  failure. 
'"I  am  more  famed  in  Heaven"  he  writes  to  Flaxman*)  from  his 
cottage  in  Felpham,  "for  my  works  than  I  could  well  con- 
ceive. In  my  brain  are  studies  and  chambers  filled  with  books 
and  pictures  of  old  which  I  wrote  and  painted  in  ages  of  eternity 
before  my  mortal  life;  these  are  the  delight  of  the  archangels. 
Why  then  should  I  be  anxious  about  the  riches  and  fame  of 
mortality?"  Valiantly  Blake  fought  on  until  the  end  of  his  life 
full  of  faith: 

"I  will  not  cease  from  mental  fight, 
Nor  shall  my  sword  sleep  in  my  hand. 
Till  we  have  built  Jerusalem 
In  England's  green  and  pleasant  land." 

(Milton.  Preface.) 

*)  John  Flaxman,  the  well-known  sculptor  and  draughtsman  who 
made  a  great  reputation  by  his  illustrations  for  Homer,  Aeschylus  and 
Dante. 


—     15    — 

In  the  midst  of  his  mental  fight  death  comes  to  him,  and 
he  dies  singing  in  a  loud  clear  voice  some  mystic  snatches  of 
song  to  a  tune  of  his  own;  even  on  his  deathbed  still  receiving 
evidence  of  the  spiritual  woild. 

Altogether  different  is  the  position  which  Dante  Gabriel 
Rossetti  takes  up  in  religious  matters.  He  has  been  called  a 
sceptic  (Benson,  Life  of  Rossetti),  but  I  do  not  think  this  term 
describes  in  any  way  his  attitude  towards  religion,  which  rather 
has  been  one  of  vain  longing.  His  mind  dwelt  much  on  the 
mystery  of  death,  the  horror  of  pain  and  decay,  and  he  tried, 
and  during  some  years  of  his  life  tried  very  hard,  to  believe  in 
a  divine  power  to  harmonize  the  miseries  of  mankind. 

In  his  youth  he  writes  the  mystical  story  '-'St  Agnes  of  Inter- 
cession."*) In  this  story,  which  had  the  sub-title  "an  auto-psychology", 
Rossetti  tells  how  a  painter  is  struck  by  the  likeness  of  the 
portrait  of  his  bride  to  a  portrait  of  St.  Agnes  by  a  painter  of 
the  middle-ages.  He  goes  to  Italy  to  see  the  original  picture 
and  discovers  that  this  is  a  portrait  of  a  lady  "deeply  attached" 
to  the  painter.  At  the  same  time  he  sees  his  own  face  in  the 
portrait  the  painter  made  of  himself.  A  violent  illness  is  the 
result  of  the  mental  shock  of  this  discovery,  and  all  the  weird 
possibilities  which  he  draws  from  it.  Slowly  he  recovers,  but 
cannot  forget  the  strange  adventure  he,  or  rather  his  soul,  had 
had.  At  this  point  the  story  is  broken  off.  Dante  Gabriel 
Rossetti  tries  to  believe  in  it  in  the  pre-existence  of  the  soul, 
but  he  cannot,  and  thus  disillusioned  breaks  the  story  off  in  the 
middle.  It  is  true  that  we  have  a  poem  written  in  his  earlier 
years  in  which  he  adopts  the  Catholic  dogma  and  reminds  us 
of  Dante's  Vergine  Madre,  figlia  del  tuo  Figlio  (Divina  Commedia, 
Par.,  Cant.  33).  The  poem  is  called**)  "Ave",  but  it  was  undoubt- 
edly the  artistic  side  of  Catholicism  which  had  won  Rossetti's 
sympathies,  and  has  nothing  or  very  little  to  do  with  his  inmost 
conviction.  The  same  holds  good  for  his  two  religious  pictures 
"Girlhood  of  the  Virgin  Mary"  and  "Ecce  ancilla  Domini".    And 

*}  Collected  works  of  D.  G.  Ro.ssetti.  London  1906,  vol.  I,  p.  399. 
**)  ibid.  p.  244. 


—     16     — 

I  think,  that  in  the  other  poems  of  Rossetti  where  he  expresses 
religious  ideas  we  must  see  them  in  the  same  light  as  the 
foregoing. 

'•^Would  God  I  knew  there  were  a  God  to  thank, 

When  thanks  rise  in  me" 
seems  to  be  the  true  attitude  of  Rossetti  towards  religion.  However, 
after  the  death  of    his  beloved   wife,   he   seems  in  the  yearning 
after  spiritual  "consolation  to  find  what  he  seeks  for  a  while  in 
the  doctrines  of  spiritualism.*) 

Very  interesting  is  his  correspondence  about  this  subject, 
falling  in  the  years  1865—67,  and  especially  the  letters  of  Baron 
Kirkup  who  tells  of  his  experiences  with  different  spirits  as: 
Dante,  Garibaldi  etc.,  are  highly  remarkable.  They  show  us  that 
Dante  Gabriel  Rossetti's  '^disposition  towards  believing  in  the 
spiritualism  was  too  much  rather  than  too  little"  (William 
M.  Rossetti)  But  though  we  hear  of  regular  spiritual  "seances" 
where  Mrs.  Marshall  and  her  husband,  she  a  wellknown  medium 
of  those  days,  gave  evidence  of  their  connection  with  the  world 
of  spirits,  the  influence  of  spiritualism  on  Rossetti's  mind  was 
not  of  a  lasting  character.  In  1871  he  writes: 
"The  Past  is  over  and  fled; 

Named  new,  we  name  it  the  old, 

Thereof  some  tale  hath  been  told. 

But  no  word  comes  from  the  dead ; 

Whether  at  all  they  be, 

Or  whether  as  bond  or  free, 

Or  whether  they  too  were  we. 

Or  by  what  spell  they  have  sped." 

(The  Cloud  Confines.**) 
Clearly   this   poem   indicates   that  the   consolation   Rossetti 
had  found  in  spiritualism   had   been  temporary,  and  that  he  had 
fallen  back  into  the  old    disbelief.     Still   more  clearly  the  same 


*)  The   father   of   Rossetti   was,   though  a  Roman  Catholic,  a  free- 
thinker;  the   children   were   educated  in   the   religion  of  the  mother  who 
belonged  to  the  Church  of  England. 
**)  ibid.  317. 


—     17     — 

thoughts   are    expressed   in  a  poem*)  "Soothsay",  written  a  year 
before  his  death: 

'To  God  at  best,  to  Chance  at  worst, 
Give  thanks  for  good  things,  last  as  first"**) 

With  Flaubert,  Rossetti  might  have  said  of  himself:  „Je 
suis  mystique  et  je  ne  crois  a  rien".  This  lack  of  faith  which 
is  highly  characteristic  for  the  modern  mystic  in  general  of  course, 
m.akes  an  essential  difference  between  the  mysticism  of  William 
Blake  and  Dante  Gabriel  Rossetti,  and  changes  all  the  doctrines 
which  Rossetti  took  from  the  latter.  From  childhood  naturally 
prone  to  the  marvellous  and  supernatural,  the  mysteries  of  life 
and  death  were  continually  present  to  the  mind  of  Rossetti,  and 
it  could  not  be  but  that  Blake's  theory  of  "correspondences"  made 
a  deep  impression  upon  him.  The  phenomena  in  this  world  are 
only  vague  shadows  of  another,  deeper  world  behind,  and  what 
we  behold  here  are  tokens  and  warnings,  we  are  always  sur- 
rounded by  an  atmosphere  of  mystery,  but  whereas  Blake's  faith 
easily  solves  the  problems  which  lie  at  the  bottom  of  existence, 
Rossetti's  mind  cannot  get  at  the  bottom  of  this  mystery,  the 
feelings  of  tension  are  present,  the  feelings  of  relaxation  are 
wanting.  The  problems  of  life  and  death  are  not  enticing  to 
him,  he  tries  to  escape  the  burthen  of  their  sadness,  but  he  never 
succeeds  in  this  completely,  and  the  result  of  this  is  a  subdued 
sadness  which  lies  overall  his  works.  In  this  all-pervading 
sense  of  sadness  and  mystery,  we  have  to  see  Blake's 
belief  in  the  spiritual  cause  of  natural  events.  The 
elements  of  joy,    serenity    and    happiness    are   wanting    in    this 

*)  ibid.  :334. 

**)  In  all  Dante  G.  Rossetti's  biographies  the  story  has  been  told 
how  in  his  last  illness  he  expressed  a  wish  to  receive  absolution  for  his 
sins.  "I  can  make  nothing  of  Christianity,  but  I  only  want  a  confessor  to 
give  me  absolution  for  my  sins!"  Adding:  "I  believe  in  a  future  life.  Have 
I  not  had  evidence  of  that  often  enough?  Have  I  not  heard  and  seen 
'hose  that  died  long  years  ago?"  I  think  that  no  importance  whatever 
must  be  attached  to  these  words,  but  that  they  must  be  considered  as  a 
passing  fancy  of  a  sick  brain,  the  more  so  as  he  never  insisted  on  seeing 
the  priest  at  his  bedside. 


—     18     — 

belief  and  in  the  collection  of  Rossetti's  poems  we  find  none 
to  match  Blake's  splendid  lyrics :  Nurse's  Song,  Spring,  the 
Echoing  Green,  and  so  many  others  display  an  innocent  joy  and 
gladness,  which  qualities  though  toned  down  in  Blake's  later 
works,  never  wholly  disappear  from  them.  Also  among  Blake's 
drawings  we  find  many  that  show  these  qualities  e.  g.  his 
engravings  "Infant  Joy".  "The  Reunion  of  the  Soul  and  the 
Body",  "Morning  or  Glad  Day".  In  the  drawing  "Infant  Joy" 
the  innocent  light-heartedness  of  youth  has  been  expressed;  in 
the  'Reunion  of  the  Soul  and  the  Body"  we  see  the  rapture  with 
which  after  a  long  separation  a  longed-for  meeting  can  fill  the 
heart.  But  especially  expressive  of  joy  in  an  abstract  sense  is 
the  drawing  "Morning  or  Glad  Day".  A  male,  naked  figure 
descends  from  above;  just  alighted,  he  with  one  foot  touches 
the  earth ;  a  flood  of  radiance  still  encircles  his  head ;  his  arms 
are  outspread,  exultingly  he  brings  joy  and  solace  to  this  lower 
world,  announcing  the  birth  of  a  new  day,  full  of  glory.  As  said 
above  Dante  Gabriel  Rossetti  has  neither  poems  nor  pictures  to 
match  these  in  joyfulness  and  lightheartedness.  We  always  move 
in  an  atmosphere  of  mystery,  the  inscrutability  of  which  is  never 
lost  sight  of,  and  the  melancholy  and  thoughts  without  hope 
which  are  the  result  of  this  mysterious  sadness,  are  apparent  in 
all  his  poems  and  pictures.  This  sense  of  sadness  and  mystery 
is  not  always  very  pronounced.  Sometimes  hardly  definable,  we 
merely  feel  that  it  is  there;  sometimes  it  reveals  itself  in  a  weird 
description  of  nature  as  in  "The  Portrait:" 

"In  painting  her  I  shrined  her  face 

Mid  mystic  trees,  where  light  falls  in 

Hardly  at  all;  a  covert  place 

When  you  might  think  to  find  a  din 

Of  doubtful  talk,  and  a  live  flame 

Wandering,  and  many  a  shape  whose  name 

Not  itself  knoweth,  and  old  dew, 

And  your  own  footsteps  meeting  you, 

And  all  things  going  as  they  came." 
And  further  on: 


—     19     — 

"And  as  I  wrought,  while  all  above 
And  all  around  was  fragrant  air, 
In  the  sick  burthen  of  my  love 
It  seemed  each  sun-thrilled  blossom  there 
Beat  like  a  heart  among  the  leaves."*) 

In  other  poems  the  sense  of  sadness  becomes  oppressive 
in  its  very  intensity,  as  in  the  opening  stanzas  of  "The  Bride's 
Prelude".  I  believe  that  here  Rossetti  goes  further  than  Blake 
in  painting  the  influence  of  surroundings.  The  years  full  of 
sorrow,  the  woeful  waiting,  the  secret  sin  of  the  bride  make  the 
air  of  her  chamber  so  very  close.  A  kind  of  dim  horror  seems 
to  be  exhaled  by  the  heavy  hangings  and  curtains,  as  if  the 
thoughts  full  of  sin  and  remorse  had  passed  over  in  them. 

"^And  even  in  shade  was  gleam  enough 
To  shut  out  full  repose 
From  the  bride's  'tiring  chamber,  which 
Was  like  the  inner  altar-iiiche 
Whose  dimness  worship  had  made  rich"**) 
(and  the  next  two  stanzas). 

The  same  feelings  we  find  expressed  in  the  ballad  "the 
Staff  and  Scrip"  where  the  room  of  the  queen  is  described: 

"The  queen  sat  idle  by  her  loom: 

She  heard  the  arras  stir. 

And  looked  up  sadly:  through  the  room 

The  sweetness  sickened  her 

Of  musk  and  myrrh."***) 

Though  Dante  Gabriel  Rossetti  in  the  last  two  examples 
works  out  a  special  idea  of  Blake  in  detail,  he  nearly  always 
adopts  his  theories  in  a  general  sense,  especially  in  the  works 
of  his  youth.  In  his  later  sonnets  and  pictures  he  penetrates 
deeper   into   them.     Probably   the    part   which    he   took    in    the 

*)  Rossetti  D.  G.,   The  collected  works,   ed.  by  W.  M.  Rossetti. 
London  1906.    Vol.  I,  240. 
♦*)  ibid.  I,  35. 
♦*♦)  ibid.  I,  70, 


—     20     — 

editing  of  Blake's  works  by  the  widow  of  Alexander  Gilchrist, 
for  which  edition  Rossetti  wrote  a  considerable  critical  part, 
now  joined  to  his  works  under  the  title  of  "A  literary  paper  on 
William  Blake",  had  enlivened  his  interest  in  Blake  again. 
Perhaps  also  the  great  sorrow  of  Rossetti's  life  had  inclined  him 
towards  philosophical  speculation.  Howewer  it  be,  it  is  certain 
that  only  after  1863  we  find  occasionally  a  special  mystical 
doctrine  expressed  in  Rossetti's  works.  So  that  we  can  assume 
that  the  influence  of  Blake's  philosophy  made  itself  felt  most 
distinctly  in  two  periods  of  Dante  G.  Rossetti's  career.  The  first 
time  this  influence  asserts  itself  most  is  the  Praeraphaelitic  period 
of  Rossetti's  art,  the  time  of  his  youth.  Here  we  find  Blake's 
mysticism  expressed  in  a  general  sense,  pervading  poems  and 
pictures  alike,  as  will  be  apparent  from  the  foregoing  pages  and 
those  that  follow. 

The  second  period  of  Blake's  influence  in  a  more  marked 
sense  is  the  time  of  Rossetti's  riper  years,  when  his  faculties 
had  reached  their  highest  development.  Now  Rossetti,  as  men- 
tioned above,  is  more  inclined  towards  philosophical  speculations; 
the  generalities,  the  ideas  which  lie  on  the  surface  of  Blake's 
philosophy  do  not  suffice  him  any  longer.  He  penetrates  deeper 
into  the  meaning  of  the  doctrines  put  before  him  and  many 
special  teachings  of  Blake  find  utterance  in  his  verse.  Especially 
in  his  Sonnets'  Sequel*)  'The  House  of  Love"  we  find  these 
doctrines  expressed.  But  I  shall  speak  of  the  general  influ- 
ence first. 

The  more  general  sense  of  mysticism,  which,  however,  I 
believe  finds  its  origin  in  Blake's  theory  of  correspondences,  is 
often  expressed  in  the  choice  of  the  subject  for  his  poems,  as  in 
the  ballads  "Rose  Mary"**)  and  "Sister  Helen".***)  In  his  pictures 
we  observe  it  in  the  subjects  chosen,  as  in  his  drawings  "The 
Gates  of  Memory",  "How  they  met  themselves",  or  in  his  crayon 
drawing  '"Tandora".  It  relieves  his  early  artistic  productions  from 
the  harshness  and   exaggerated    naivete   we  find  in  the  pictures 

*)Tbid.  p.  176-227. 
**)  ibid.  p.  103. 
**♦)  ibid.  p.  66. 


-     21     — 

of  the  other  Praeraphaelites ;  this  holds  good  in  particular  for 
his  picture  „Ecce  Ancilla  Domini".  The  eyes  of  the  madonna 
seem  full  of  kept-back  tears,  they  plead  for  a  deeper,  warmer 
humanity  than  is  conceivable  with  the  pure  Praeraphaelitic  con- 
ception. This  mysticism  finds  utterance,  and  this  is  very  Blakean, 
in  allegory  and  symbolism.  From  his  early  years  we  possess 
e.  g.  a  very  dark  symbolical  sonnet  "The  Vase  of  Life"*).  Human 
life  is  figured  as  a  vase,  sculptured  with  a  bas-relief,  representing 
a  young  man  running  a  race,  which  he  wins.  A  certain  man  of 
genius  does  not  like  others  to  crowd  round  the  vase,  he  masters 
its  imaged  significance.  He  fills  it  with  the  rapid  and  ardent 
experiences  of  his  career  and  at  last  it  will  hold  its  ashes. 
(William  M.  Rossetti). 

In  many  of  Dante  Gabriel  Rossetti's  later  sonnets  we  find 
again  Blake's  theory  of  "states".  However,  while  Blake  in  per- 
sonifying his  states  gave  them  names  and  even  a  feminine  part, 
their  weaker  or  better  self,  called  "emanation",  and  with  these 
imaginative  beings  created  new  myths,  Dante  Gabriel  Rossetti 
does  not  go  so  far  in  the  personification  of  his  moods  (Stimm- 
ungen).  But  though  individual  names  do  not  occur  for  "states" 
yet  we  find  that  in  many  sonnets  of  Rossetti  Blake's  "states"  or 
their  "emanations"  are  put  before  our  eyes.  All  of  his  sonnets  are 
written,  as  Rossetti  testifies  in  a  letter  to  Mr.  Sharp,  "on  some 
basis  of  special  momentary  emotion".  For  instance  in  the  sonnet 
'^He  and  1"**)  we  have  to  see  a  personified  mood.  It  exhibits  the 
surprise  when  a  man  finds  out  that  he  is  no  longer  himself,  no 
longer  youthful  and  buoyant;  how  it  is  that  he  is  old  and  dejected 

"Lo!  this  new  Self  now  wanders  round  my  field. 
With  plaints  for  every  flower,  and  for  each  tree 
A  moan," 
and  he  weeps 

**.  .  .  o'er  sweet  waters  of  my  life,  that  yield 
Unto  his  lips  no  draught,  but  tears  unseal'd. 
Even  in  my  place  he  weeps.     Even  I,  not  he'\ 

♦)  ibid.  224.    **)  ibid.  I,  226. 


—     22     — 

Still  more  distinctly  the  personification  of  an  abtract  idea 
is  seen  in  "Vain  Virtues".*) 

"What  is  the  sorriest  thing  that  enters  Hell? 
None  of  the  sins,  but  this  and  that  fair  deed 
Which  a  soul's  sin  at  length  could  supersede. 
These  yet  are  virgins,  whom  death's  timely  knell 
Might  once  have  sainted ;  whom  the  fiends  compel 
Together  now,  in  snake-bound  shuddering  sheaves 
Of  anguish,  while  the  pit's  pollution  leaves 
Their  refuse  maidenhood  abominable. 

Night  sucks  them  down,  the  tribute  of  the  pit. 
Whose  names,  half  entered  in  the  book  of  Life, 
Where  God's  desire  at  noon.     And  as  their  hair 
And  eyes  sink  last,  the  Torturer  deigns  no  whit 
To  gaze,  but,  yearning,  waits  his  destined  wife, 
The  Sin  still  blithe  on  earth  that  sent  them  there." 
Here  Rossetti  follows  Blake  in  representing  the  good  part 
of  the  emotion  as  a  female  (In  one  more  instance  we  find  this  in 
his  works,  viz.  in  the  mystic  story  "Hand  and  Soul",  where  the 
"emanation"  of  the  human  body,  the  soul,  visits  a  young  painter 
in   the  form   of   a  woman).     The  sonnet  has  a  double  meaning 
(William  M.  Rossetti), 

I.  an  ethical  meditation. 

II.  a  spiritual  impersonation. 

The  first  means  that  the  condemnation  of  sin  is  not  so 
dreadful  a  thing  to  reflect  upon,  as  the  fact  that  a  sinful  soul 
may  have  started  as  a  virtuous  one  and  that  when  tlie  soul  is 
condemned,  its  virtue  as  well  as  its  sins  are  so. 

The  second  meaning  indicates,  that  a  virtuous  deed,  the 
offspring  of  a  human  soul,  is  a  fair  virgin,  who,  were  the  soul 
to  pass  from  earthly  life,  would  become  a  saint  in  Heaven.  But 
the  soul  commits  a  dreadful  sin  and  is  married  to  the  devil, 
but  even  while  sin  is  still  blithe  on  earth,  the  fair  virgin  forfeits 
her  sainthood  and  is  drowned  in  the  pit  of  doom, 

*)Tbid.  I,  219. 


—     28     — 

In  another  Sonnet,  ^Heart's  Compass"*),  we  find  Blake's 
idea  of  a  composite  individual  (the  Grand  Man).  Dante  Gabriel 
Rossetti  identifies  this  supreme  being  with  Love  "the  evident 
heart  of  all  life  sown  and  mown".  He  is  awed  and  impressed 
when  this  inner  relation  of  things  to  each  other  show  him  his 
beloved  not  as  herself  alone,  but  "as  the  meaning  of  all  things 
that  are."  '*What,"  does  he  ask  of  himself,  "is  this  power?"  and 
the  answer  comes:  "it  is  love,  love  in  its  best  form,  with  all 
sensuousness  fallen  off  from  it." 

In  the  sonnet  "Lost  Days"  Dante  Gabriel  Rossetti  sees 
innumerable  "states"  pass  before  his  eyes,  they  are  those  in 
which,  when  he  passed  through  them,  he  did  not  use  the  oppor- 
tunities they  brought;  he  mourns  over  them  and  wonders  whether 
they  are  but  "golden  coins  squandered  and  still  to  pay"  or 
"drops  of  blood  dabbling  the  guilty  feet."  God  knows  how 
after  death  he  will  find  them  back  "each  one  a  murdered  self", 
and  eternal,  while  everything  on  earth  is  eternal. 

In  Dante  Gabriel  Rossetti's  pictures  he  even  more  than  in 
his  poems  expresses  his  mystical  feelings  by  symbolism.  Some- 
times symbolical  figui-es  are  heaped  in  paintings  and  drawings 
and  charge  these  with  a  wealth  of  feelings  not  always  easily 
understood.  As  a  typical  example  of  this  a  small  drawing  can 
serve,  which  Rossetti  made  as  a  headpiece  for  his  sonnets  in 
1880.  The  drawing  represents  the  floating  figure  of  an  angel 
with  an  hourglass  in  one  hand  and  a  harp  in  the  other,  her  hair 
crowned  with  laurels,  near  her  a  rose  tree,  at  her  side  a  serpent, 
a  butterfly,  and  medals  with  the  alpha  and  omega.  Over  the 
angel  the  word  "Anima"  is  written.  Dante  G.  Rossetti  gives  an 
explanation  that  the  soul  is  instituting  a  memorial  of  one  dead 
deathless  hour  by  putting  a  winged  hourglass  in  a  rosebush  and 
at  the  same  time  touching  the  14-stringed  harp.  To  me  however 
this  explanation  does  not  make  the  drawing  more  clear. 

There  are  also  pictures  in  which  we  find  too  much  sym- 
bolism, for  instance  "Sibylla  Palmifera",  an  oil  painting;  here  the 
butterflies  (emblems  of  the  soul)  are  symbolical,  the  palm  in  her 

♦)  ibid.  I,  190 


—     24     — 

hand,  the  vessel  of  incense,  the  smoke  of  which  rises  before  a 
blinded  Cupid.  Gradually  Rossetti  expresses  the  mystic  feeling 
no  longer  through  the  medium  of  allegory  or  symbolism.  He 
begins  to  paint  "emotions",  '•^states",  and  whereas  Blake  found 
as  representatives  for  his  "states"  the  male  and  female  figures, 
Rossetti  took  the  figure  of  woman  alone.  In  a  world  where 
everything  else  might  be  a  shadow,  the  physical  beauty  of  woman 
formed  a  solid  basis  of  reality,  and  was  accepted  by  Rossetti 
as  the  centre  from  which  all  emotions  proceed.  And  gradually 
there  appear  the  long  row  of  three-quarter  length  portraits  in 
water-colours  and  oil  paint,  or  in  crayon  which  all  of  them  repre- 
sent as  many  '"Stimmungen",  all  of  them  are  as  many  personified 
^'states".  There  is  an  unmistakable  likeness  between  them,  (do 
not  all  'emotions"  resemble  each  other  more  or  less?)  which 
consists  therein,  that  all  of  them  represent  the  "state"  and  its 
''emanation"  or  the  emotion  in  jts  sensuous  and  spiritual  meaning, 
those  parts  of  the  mood  which  belong  to  the  body  and  those  which 
belong  to  the  soul.  The  nether  part  of  the  face  is  the  seat  of 
that  side  of  the  emotion  which  influences  the  senses  and  con- 
stitutes the  baser  part  of  it;  here  we  always  find  the  full  red 
lips  with  a  sensuous  curve;  the  eyes  Dante  Gabriel  Rossetti  takes 
for  the  spiritual  part,  the  "emanation"  of  the  "state",  they  possess 
the  depth  and  glimmer  of  eternity  and  the  brilliancy  of  heavenly 
stars.  Rossetti  passes  through  the  long  scale  of  emotions  and 
feelings  which  exist  in  the  human  heart  and  for  each  of  them  he 
has  a  picture  as  representative.  On  one  end  of  this  row  we  may 
put  "Beata  Beatrix"*)  as  expressing  the  summit  of  human  bliss, 
*)  In  "Beata  Beatrix",  and  not  only  here,  Rossetti  uses  colour  in  a  symbolical 
sense.  The  red  bird  means  passion.  The  same  he  does  in  his  picture  „Paolo 
and  Francesca"  where  the  floor  is  strown  with  red  roses.  Blake  did  this  very 
often.  He  uses  red  as  the  symbol  of  passion,  green  stands  for  the  instinc- 
tive life,  pink  and  white  for  the  highest  imagination.  Hence  we  find  in 
the  illustrations  of  the  "Marriage  of  Heaven  and  Hell"  (British  Museum 
Copy)  the  eagle  and  the  serpent  painted  in  streaks  of  red  and  green;  the 
£ame  colours  are  given  to  the  "Tiger",  illustrating  the  poem  of  that  name. 
Also  the  angel  in  the  "Marriage  of  Heaven  and  Hell",  when  hearing  of 
Blake's  thoughts  "grew  pink".  Throughout  all  Blake's  works  examples 
1  ike  the  foregoing  can  be  found  abundantly,  cf.  Helen  Richter,  Blake  pg  111. 


—     25     — 

on  the  opposite  end  "Astarte  Syriaca"  as  the  emblem 
most  cruel  lust;  between  these,  forming  the  neutral  element  we 
have  the  picture  of  "Fiametta",  the  ordinary  healthy  type  of  woman, 
not  troubled  by  any  feelings  at  all,  representing  a  "negative 
emotion",  if  such  a  thing  does  exist.  And  between  these  three 
all  kinds  of  painted  emotions  are  grouped:  their  difference  often 
very  subtle,  their  meaning  not  always  easy  to  understand,  not- 
withstanding, or  perhaps  because  of  the  allegorical  figures  which 
accompany  them.  Generally  they  express  some  phase  of  love; 
there  is  the  vague  feeling  of  love  which  hardly  can  be  expressed 
in  the  "Day-Dream";  the  feeling  of  reluctance  when  sacrifi- 
cing peace  and  tranquillity  of  heart  to  Love,  in  "Venus  Verticordia" ;  *) 
the  passionate  yearning  for  lost  Love  in  the  "Blessed  Damozel", 
and  the  perverse  feelings  Love  can  inspire  in  its  modern  phase, 
in  "Lilith". 

1  think  these  examples  suffice  to  prove  that  Rossetti  in  the 
painting  of  his  principal  pictures,  his  woman  portraits,  was  a 
painter  of  imagination  and  that  the  basis  on  which  he  founded 
his  theory  was  born  in  him  under  the  influence  of  William  Blake. 

Influence  of  W.  Blake's  Poetry. 

The  poetic  influence  of  W.  Blake  on  Rossetti  made  itself 
mainly  felt  in  the  first  period  of  Rossetti's  literary  career.  It 
mostly  concerns  Blake's  lyrical  poems  and  more  especially  Blake's 
"Songs  of  Innocence"  and  "Songs  of  Experience".  Before  these 
poems  Blake  had  written  the  lyrics  known  under  the  name  of 
"Poetical  Sketches".  These  early  poems  are  all  of  them  written 
in  an  Elizabethan  strain  and  show  us  that  Blake  must  have  been 
an  ardent  student  of  Shakespeare  and  the  other  poets  of  the 
sixteenth  and  seventeenth  centuries.  Hewlett**)  laboriously  informs 
us  of  the  sources  from  which  these  songs  have  been  taken.  And 
indeed  it  is  easy  to  perceive  that  lines  like: 

•)  cf.  The  sonnet,  Collected  Works  1,360. 

•♦)  Contemporary  Review,  Vol.  28;  1876.  William  Blake.  Imperfect 
Genius 


—     26  — 

"Bring  me  an  axe  and  a  spade, 
Bring  me  a  winding-sheet, 
Wiien  I  my  grave  have  made, 
Let  winds  and  tempests  beat;" 

(My  Silks  and  fine  Array) 

have  been  inspired  by  the  Grave  Digger's  Song  in  Hamlet.  Also 
the  influence  of  Beaumont  and  Fletcher,  a  new  edition  of  whom 
had  appeard  in  1770,  is  apparent  in  many  of  these  songs.  But 
if  imitated,  these  poems  are  perfect  imitations  of  their  prototypes. 
There  is  the  song  beginning  "Love  and  harmony  combine",  or 
the  one  dedicated  to  Memory;  the  above  mentioned  "My  Silks 
and  fine  Array";  all  of  these  can  rank  with  the  best  lyrics  the 
Elizabethan  age  has  produced.  The  most  beautiful  is  the 
passionate  "Mad  Song",  which  already  touches  a  more  personal 
note  than  is  conceivable  with  the  Elizabethan  ideal  of  lyric  poetry. 
In  Blake's  early  productions  another  influence  than  the  above 
named  is  still  visible.  His  "Contemplation"  and  "The  Couch  of 
Death",  two  pieces  of  lyrical  prose  are  evidently  written  under 
the  influence  of  Ossian.  Also  in  the  Prophetic  Books  Blake  uses 
Ossian's  rythmical  prose.  And  he  writes  in  a  MS.  note  on 
Wordswoith's  Supplementary  Essay:  "I  believe  both  Macpherson 
and  Chatterton:  that  what  they  say  is  ancient,  is  so." 

These  influences,  however,  show  themselves  only  in  the 
poems  of  his  youth  and  slightly  in  the  Prophetic  Books.  The 
Songs  of  Innocence  and  the  Songs  of  Experience,  Blake's  splendid 
sequels  of  lyrics,  are  entirely  original ;  here  the  poet  is  altogether 
himself,  free  from  any  influence.  It  is  difficult  to  delineate  the 
charms,  which  these  poems  possess.  They  form  a  unity  and  have 
a  mutual  relation  to  each  other  and  should,  in  order  to  be  fully 
appreciated,  be  read  as  a  whole.  The  Songs  of  Innocence  give 
us  glimpses  of  a  primitive,  naive  world,  where  men  and  beasts 
alike  are  filled  with  innocent,  youthful  happiness  and  joy.  In 
some  of  these  poems  the  events  of  every-day  life  are  transfigured 
as  seen  by  Blake's  keen  and  exalted  mind,  e.  g.  in  "Holy  Thurs- 
day", in  which  he  describes  his  meeting  with  the  Charity  Children 


-      27     — 

at  St.  Paul's.  Also  in  the  Nurse's  Song,  in  which  is  told  how  a' 
nurse  at  sunset  calls  the  children  home  from  their  sports.  Besides 
these  we  find  the  pure  lyrical  song  represented  in  the  "Laughing 
Song"  with  its  happy  ring  of  merry  voices;  in  the  "Spring",  a 
very  vocal  poem  despite  the  imperfect  rhymes.  Other  poems 
express  a  -child-like  piety  as  "the  Lamb"  and  'A  Cradle  Song". 
In  all  these  songs  we  find  a  tender  loveliness  which  hardly 
reappears  in  Blake's  subsequent  writings.  The  "Songs  of  Ex- 
perience", written  five  years  later,  are  deeper,  already  they  show 
forth  Blake's  mystic  ideas;  but  though  the  melody  and  simplicity 
of  expression  remain  the  same,  they  have  lost  in  freshness  and 
spontaneity.  As  an  example  I  quote  the  first  stanza  of  the  beau- 
tiful "Cradle  Song"  with  its  soft  melancholy: 

"Sleep,  sleep,  beauty  bright, 
D/eaming  in  the  joys  of  night, 
Slee'p,  sleep;  in  thy  sleep 
Little  sorrows  sit  and  weep".*) 

Highly  remarkable  are  the  poems  "The  Little  Girl  Lost"  and 
"The  Little  Girl  Found".  In  these  Blake  illustrates  in  a  beautiful 
allegory  one  of  his  favourite  doctrines  viz.  the  physical  nature  has 
a  right  to  be  indulged  in.  It  is  true,  and  this  holds  good  for  Blake's 
Songs  of  Experience  in  general,  that  we  do  not  easily  catch  the 
meaning  of  these  poems;  but  then  the  language  is  so  musical, 
the  rhymes  are  so  natural  and  profuse,  the  bold  images  so  highly 
imaginative,  that  we  feel  that  here  we  read  true  poetry  of  the 
highest  kind.  Blake  represents  in  these  poems  physical  nature  by 
the  lost  girl  Lyca  (from  the  Greek  word  for  wolf)  who  errs  through 
a  dense  forest: 

"Seven  summers  old 
Lovely  Lyca  told; 
She  had  wander'd  long 
Hearing  wild  birds'  song". 


•)  Blake,  Works  ed.  by  Gilchrist  II,  73. 


—     28     — 

The  parents,  the  reasonable  powers  in  man,  go  out  to  seek  her: 

"All  the  night  in  woe 
Lyca's  parents  go 
Over  valleys  deep. 
Where  the  deserts  weep". 

They  find,  however,  that  the  beasts  of  prey,  the  symbols 
of  free,  natural  life,  have  taken  Lyca  under  their  protection. 

"Sleeping  Lyca  lay. 
While  the  beasts  of  prey. 
Come  from  caverns  deep, 
View'd  the  maid  asleep." 

At  last  they  too  acknowledge  the  natural  powers,  which  at 
first  they  feared  because  of  the  fierce  desires  they  inspire.  Glory- 
fied  the  lion  stands  before  them: 

"On  his  head  a  crown; 
On  his  shoulders  down 
Flow'd  his  golden  hair. 
Gone  was  all  their  care." 

Only  now,  after  having  returned  to  nature,  they  can  live  happily : 
"To  this  day  they  dwell 
In  a  lonely  dell; 
Nor  fear  the  wolfish  howl, 
Nor  the  lion's  growl". 

These  two  poems  "The  Little  Girl  Lost"  and  "The  Little 
Girl  Found",  can  stand  as  typical  examples  for  Blake's  Songs  of 
Experience.  In  the  same  strain  are  written:  "A  Little  Boy  Lost", 
"A  little  Girl  Lost,"  "The  Fly,"  "The  Chimney  Sweeper,"  etc.  All  of 
these  poems  illuminate  one  of  Blake's  philosophical  doctrines. 
The  language  too  is  always  the  same:  the  words,  for  the  greater 
part  of  Teutonic  origin,  are  very  simple  and  often  monosyllabic. 
In  the  metre  also  the  same  tendencies  can  be  observed:  generally 
short-lined  stanzas  rhyming  in  couplets  are  used.  Besides  end- 
rhyme  interlinear  rhyme  occurs,  where  the  lines  are  prolonged,  e.  g. : 


—     29     — 

"And  I  saw  it  was  filled  with  graves, 

And  tombstones  where  flowers  should  be: 

And  priests  in  black  gowns  were  walking  their  rounds. 

And  binding  with  briers  my  joys  and  desires." 

(The  Garden  of  Love.) 

The  same  in  the  opening  stanza  of  "the  Angel": 
"I  dreamt  a  dream!  what  can  it  mean? 
And  that  I  was  a  maiden  Queen."*) 

Also  in  these  poems  alliteration  is  found  in  great  profusion, 
every  poem  contains  several  examples  of  this,  so  that  it  will 
suffice  when  I  give  one,  chosen  at  random : 

"The  Sword  sang  on  the  barren  heath, 
The  Sickle  in  the  fruitful  field; 
The  Sword  he  sang  a  song  of  death 
But  could  not  make  the  Sickle  yield." 

(Couplets  and  Fragments.) 

Another  peculiarity  of  style  in  these    poems   consists   in  the 
repetition  of  the  same  words;  often  at  the    beginning   of  a  line: 

*I  was  angry  with  my  friend, 

I  told  my  wrath,  my  wrath  did  end; 

I  was  angry  with  my  foe, 

I  told  it  not,  my  wrath  did  grow". 

(Christian  Forbearance.) 

Sometimes  a  whole  line  is  repeated,  the  order  of  the  words 
slightly  changed,  or  exactly  the  same: 

"And  I  wept  both  night  and  day, 
And  he  wiped  my  tears  away. 
And  I  wept  both  day  and  night. 
And  hid  from  him  my  heart's  delight." 

(The  Angel.) 

*)  Imperfect  rhymes  such  as  dream-mean,  more-poor,  echofed-bed  etc. 
occur  very  frequently. 


—     30     — 

And  in  "The  Lamb": 

"Little  lamb,  I'll  tell  thee, 
Little  lamb,  I'll  tell  thee: 
He  is  called  by  thy  name. 
For  he  calls  himself  a  lamb. 

Little  lamb,  God  bless  thee! 
Little  lamb,  God  bless  thee!" 

Occasionally  even  a  whole  stanza  is  repeated  as  in  "The 
Tiger",  where  the  first  and  last  are  identical. 

In  1793  Blake  had  published  another  small  volume  of  poetry: 
"The  Gates  of  Paradise".  These  verses  show  the  same  pecu- 
liarities of  style  as  the  foregoing,  but  the  thoughts  expressed  in 
them  are  full  of  bitterness,  as  far  as  their  meaning  can  be  under- 
:stood,  hidden  as  they  are  in  a  maze  of  mysticism.  These  poems 
together  with  the  Book  of  Thel  form  the  transition  between 
-Blake's  lyrical  period  and  his  Prophetic  Books.  When  Blake 
wrote  the  Prophetic  Books  he  had  lived  a  secluded,  lonely  life 
for  several  years.  There  had  been  a  time  when  by  the  influence 
of  Flaxman  the  doors  of  Mrs.  Mathew's*)  drawing-room  had 
been  opened  for  Blake.  We  hear  of  social  gatherings,  where  the 
wits  of  the  day,  the  modish  painters  and  dramatists  united  in 
brillant  "conversazione".  They  are  now  forgotten  these  literary 
luminaries  of  those  days;  even  their  names,  should  I  enumerate 
ihem,  would  sound  meaningless.  Yet  Mrs.  Mathew's  "salon" 
was  famous  then  and  even  visited  occasionally  by  sprightly  Mrs. 
Elizabeth  Montagu.  Here  Blake  and  his  young  wife  Catherine  were 
regular  visitors,  and  Blake  sang  his  songs  to  tunes  of  his  own. 
But  Blake's  wilful  and  eccentric  character  and  some  grave  defects  in 
Catherine's  breeding  were  the  cause  of  Blake's  breaking  with 
this  circle.  In  a  very  bitter  satire,  "The  Island  in  the  Moon", 
Blake    exposes   the    weaknesses    of   the    different   persons    who 

*)  Mrs.  Mathew  (1720—1800)  was  the  wife  of  a  popular  clergyman,  the 
Rev.  Henry  Mathew.  They  discovered  and  fostered  the  genius  of  Flaxman, 
and  it  is  said  that  Mrs.  Mathew,  learned  as  well  as  elegant,  would  read 
^Homer  in  the  original  to  Flaxman  when  he  was  a  boy. 


—    31     — 

visited  Mrs.  Mathew's  drawing-room.  After  iiis  worldly  failure 
Blake  never  tries  to  mix  with  the  world  again,  put  disgusted 
with  social  life,  altogether  withdraws  from  society.  This  volun- 
tary seclusion  of  a  man  so  highly  imaginative  as  Blake  of  course 
had  as  a  result,  that  he  altogether  lost  contact  with  the  world. 
He  simply  writes  down  his  abstract  fancies  as  he  sees  them 
before  his  mental  eye,  never  troubling  himself  with  the  thoughts 
of  the  impression  these  fancies  would  make  on  the  minds  of 
other  persons. 

Especially  the  Prophetic  Books  are  full  of  these  wild  fancies, 
and  were  looked  upon  by  William  Rossetti  as  not  free  from  a 
tinge  of  insanity,  which  opinion  seems  to  have  been  shared  by 
his  brother.  Therefore  D.  G.  Rossetti  could  appreciate  the  drawings 
which  adorn  the  works  of  Blake,  the  pieces  of  lyrical  song 
which  occasionally  relieve  the  monotony  of  Blake's  rythmical 
prose,  could  be  impressed  by  some  beautiful  descriptive  lines 
as  they  often  occur  in  Blake,  but  could  not  be  much  influenced 
by  works  which  he  regarded  as  the  aberrations  of  a  sick  mind, 
be  it  the  mind  of  a  genius.  I  believe  Rossetti  did  not  think  it 
worth  while  to  subject  Blake's  works  to  a  closer  investigation 
for  this  reason.  In  his  correspondence  with  Mrs.  Gilchrist  about 
the  editing  of  Blake,  Rossetti  writes:  "the  truth  is  that  as  regards 
such  a  poem  as  '^My  Spectre"*)  I  do  not  understand  it  a  bit 
better  than  anyone  else;  only  I  know  better  than  some  may 
know,  that  it  has  claims  as  poetry  apart  from  the  question  of 
understanding  it  and  therefore  is  worth  printing". 

In  the  same  way  Rossetti  does  not  understand  Blake  when 
he  calls  Blake's  painting  of  a  tiger  in  streaks  of  red  and  green, 
"an  unaccountable  perversity  of  colour"  (Literary  Paper  on 
W.  Blake).    Of   course    it   would    have    been    easy   to   see   for 


*)  "My  Spectre  around  me  night  and  day 

Like  a  wild  beast  guards  my  way; 

My  Emanation  far  within 

Weeps  incessantly  for  my  sin." 
Lyrical   Poems  by   William  Blake.    Introduction  by  Walter  Raleigh. 
Oxford  1905,  p.  100. 


—     32     — 

Rossetti,  who  himself  uses  symbolical  colours  very  often,  that 
Blake  here  for  the  reason  of  symbolism  deviates  from  the  natural 
colouring  of  his  tiger.  However  Rossetti  did  not  think  it  neces- 
sary to  seek  for  an  explanation,  convinced  as  he  was,  that  this 
explanation,  both  here  and  in  the  aforenamed  poem,  was  given 
already  by  the  "slight  tinge  of  insanity"  which  is  to  be  found 
in  Blake's  works  and  more  especially  in  the  Prophetic  Books. 
In  this  madness  which  Rossetti  addicted  to  Blake  we  have  to 
see  the  main  reason  of  the  comparatively  small  influence  of  the 
Prophetic  Books  on  Rossetti.  Moreover,  unlike  Blake,  Rossetti 
never  loses  sight  of  the  public  he  writes  for,  always  the  fancies 
of  his  imaginative  brain  are  kept  in  proper  check,  remindful  as 
he  is  of  the  limitations  of  the  ordinary  reader.  "Above  all  ideal 
personalities",  Rossetti  writes  in  a  letter  probably  to  Mr.  Sharp^ 
"with  which  the  poet  must  learn  to  identify  himself,  there  is  one 
supremely  real . . .  namely  that  of  his  reader."  This  is  another  reason 
why  we  do  not  find  in  Rossetti's  poetry  much  of  the  Prophetic 
Books;  with  their  violent  speech,  fleeting  ideas,  and  dark  symbolism 
these  are  so  altogether  unfit  for  the  general  reader.  But  though, 
as  a  rule,  Rossetti  is  more  reserved  in  the  expression  of  his 
ideas,  yet  occasionally  we  find  a  sonnet  in  which  the  turbulence 
of  sounds,  the  choice  of  words,  and  the  far  too  strong  imagery 
are  very  Blakean. 

Most  distinctly  this  influence  of  Blake's  Prophetic  Books 
can  be  seen  in  a  sonnet  entitled  "After  the  French  Liberation  of 
Italy",  which  sonnet  I  will  quote  fully,  as  it  is  not  generally 
included  in  D.  G.  Rossetti's  works. 

"Lo  the  twelfth  year  —  the  wedding-feast  come  round 
With  years  for  months  —  and  lo  the  babe  new-born; 
Out  of  the  womb's  rank  furnace  cast  forlorn, 
And  with  contagious  effluence  seamed  and  crowned. 
To  hail  his  birth,  what  fiery  tongues    surround 
Hell's  Pentecost  —  what  clamour  of  all  cries 
That  swell  from  Absalom's  scoff  to  Shinei's, 
One  scornful  gamut  of  tumultuous  sound! 


—     33     — 

For  now  the  harlot's  heart  on  a  new  sleeve 
Is  prankt;  and  her  heart's  lord  of  yesterday 
(Spurned  from  her  bed,  whose  worm-spun  silks  o'erlay 
Such  fretwork  as  that  other  worm  can  weave) 
Takes  in  his  ears  the  vanished  world's  last  yell, 
And  in  his  flesh  the  closing  teeth  of  Hell." 

This  sonnet  reads  like  a  passage  of  Blake's  Prophetic  Books; 
the  same  dim  flight  of  ideas,  vaguely  expressed  in  a  '•^iery  tongue" 
can  be  found  in  Blake's  Jerusalem,  America,  Daughters  of  Albion, 
or  any  one  of  the  Prophetic  Books  we  like  to  open.  Apart  from 
this  sonnet  and  a  few  more,  where  the  same  influence  is  traceable, 
though  not  in  the  same  degree,  we  have  to  see  in  Rossetti's 
exaggerated  love  for  allegory  a  tendency  developed  after  Blake's 
example.  So  we  find  e.  g.  in  a  simple  narrative  poem  like 
Jenny,  dealing  with  an  up  to  date  question,  the  problem  of 
primitive  sin  in  its  crudest  and  at  the  same  time  best-known 
form,  inserted  a  personification  of  lust;  though  very  graphic  and 
beautiful  in  itself,  this  allegory  in  which  lust,  "like  a  toad  in  a 
stone  sits  from  the  time  the  earth  was  cursed,  deaf,  blind  and 
alone",  seems  altogether  out  of  place  in  this  particular  kind  of 
poem,  dealing  with  a  realistic  subject  of  every-day  life. 

Far  greater  is  the  influence  exercised  on  Rossetti  by  Blake's 
lyrical  poems.  The  characteristics  of  the  Songs  of  Innocence  and 
the  Songs  of  Experience  which  I  pointed  out  before,  can  be 
found  in  the  poems  ot  Rossetti  especially  in  the  early  ones. 
However,  what  Blake  found  out  as  it  were  accidentally  and  ap- 
plied half-consciously,  has  been  used  by  Rossetti  systematically, 
in  perfect  consciousness  of  its  effect.  Therefore  Rossetti's  poems 
gain  in  clearness  and  construction,  but  lose  in  freshness  and 
spontaneity,  when  compared  to  Blake's.  We  find  back  Blake's 
naivete  and  simple  directness  of  speech  in  many  early  poems 
for  example  in  ''The  Staff  and  Scrip";  in  the  ballad  "The  white 
Ship",  and  in  "My  Sister's  Sleep",  a  descriptive  poem.  Best  of 
all  this   simplicity  is    exemplified    in    an    admirable  termination. 


—     34     — 

Rossetti  put  to  the  ancient  stanza  *'How  should  I  your  true-love 
know?"  (Hamlet  IV.  5,25)  under  the  title  of  "An  old  Song  ended,"*) 
here  comes  a  quatrain  which  reads  almost  exactly  like  one  of 
Blake's  Songs  of  Innocence  in  its  child-like  turn  of  phrase: 

"For  a  token  is  there  nought, 
Say,  that  he  should  bring?" 
''He  will  bear  a  ring  I  gave 
And  another  ring." 

In  these  poems  we  find  a  preference  for  monosyllabic 
words  of  Teutonic  origin,  with  which  often  great  dignity  of 
expression  has  been  achieved  e.  g.  in  the  "White  Ship"**)  the 
lines: 

"The  ship  was  gone  and  the  crowd  was  gone, 
And  the  deep  shuddered  and  the  moon  shone" 

or  in  the  following  lines  from  "The  Staff  and  Scrip":***) 

"Uncover  ye  his  face",  she  said. 

"0  changed  in  little  space!" 

She  cried,  "0  pale  that  was  so  red! 

0  God,  0  God  of  Grace! 

Cover  his  face!" 

Exactly  as  in  Blake's  lyrics,  a  profuse  use  of  alliteration 
has  been  made;  we  also  find  the  repetition  of  the  same  words, 
the  same  phrases  or  occasionally  the  same  stanzas.  Of  Rossetti's 
use  of  alliteration  I  will  not  give  examples,  as  there  are  hardly 
any  poems  in  which  no  alliterative  lines  occur.  I  will  merely 
mention  the  poem  called  "Chimes"****)  in  which  alliteration  has 
been  carried  to  an  excess,  and  where  we  find  lines  like: 


*)  ibid.  p.  300. 
**)  ibid.  p.  137. 
***)  ibid.  p.  75. 
****)  ibid.  p.  330. 


—    3r3    — 

Lost  love  —  labour  and  lullaby 
And  lowly  let  love  lie, 
v^here  the  sense  has  been   sacrificed    to   the   melody  of  sound. 

Very  interesting  is  the  use  Rossetti  makes  of  the  repetition 
of  the  same  phrase  or  line;  by  using  these  lines  at  regular 
intervals  they  form  a  kind  of  chorus  to  his  poems,  and  remind 
the  reader  continually  of  the  mood  which  forms  the  back-ground 
of  the  poetical  image.  The  most  striking  example  is  his  poem 
"Troy  Town",*)  where  the  too  frequent  repetition  of  the  same 
words  is  almost  monotonous.  The  poem  opens  with  the  follow- 
ing stanza: 

*'Heaven-born  Helen,  Sparta's  queen, 

(0  Troy  Town!) 
Had  two  breasts  of  heavenly  sheen. 
The  sun  and  moon  of  the  heart's  desire: 
All  Love's  Lordship  lay  between. 
(0  Troy's  down, 
Tall  Troy's  on  fire.)" 

In  fourteen  stanzas  the  refrain  "O  Troy  Town!  0  Troy's 
down,  Tall  Troy's  on  fire!"  besides  the  last  word  of  the  third 
line  "heart's  desire"  are  repeated  exactly  in  the  same  place,  and 
we  feel  that  we  have  too  much  of  a  good  thing.  Far  happier 
the  repetition  of  the  same  words  has  been  applied  in  the  ballad 
"Sister  Helen"  ;*^)  the  refrain  shows  slight  changes  in  accordance 
with  the  thoughts  expressed  in  the  stanza  concerned  ;  here  the 
constant  tragic  appeal  to  the  holy  virgin  heightens  the  dramatic 
force  of  the  poem.  I  will  quote  the  first  and  last  stanzas  of 
this  ballad,  which  illustrates  a  well-known  superstition  of  the 
middle-ages  and  tells  the  story  of  a  deceived  bride  who  avenges 
herself  on  her  unfaithful  lover  by  making  a  wax-image  of  him 
which  she  burns  and  the  melting  of  which  causes  the  death  of 
the  deceiver.  The  events  are  told  in  the  form  of  a  dialogue  bet- 
ween the  bride  and  her  little  brother. 


♦)  ibid.  p.  305. 
**)  ibid.  p.  66. 


—     36     — 

"Why  did  you  melt  your  waxen  man, 

Sister  Helen? 
To-day  is  the  third  since  you  began." 
-'The  time  was  long,  yet  the  time  ran. 

Little  brother." 
(0  Mother,  Mary  Mother, 
Three  days  to-day  between  Hell  and  Heaven!) 
and  the  last  stanza: 

''Ah!  what  white  thing  at  the  door  has  cross'd, 

Sister  Helen? 
Ah!  what  is  this  that  sighs  in  the  frost?" 
"A  soul  that's  lost  as  mine  is  lost, 

Little  brother!" 
(0  Mother,  Mary  Mother, 
Lost,  lost,  all  lost,  between  Hell  and  Heaven!) 

These  repetitions  of  the  same  words  as  a  burden  Rossetti 
uses  with  more  or  less  effect  in  many  other  poems  except  the 
above  mentioned.  We  find  it  in  "Eden  Bower",  '•'•A  Death-Par- 
ting", "The  Cloud  Confines",  and  several  others.  I  believe  to 
have  made  sufficiently  clear  now  that  we  have  to  see  the  influence 
of  Blake  in  the  foregoing  qualities  of  Rossetti's  poetry.  It  will, 
however,  have  been  noticed  that  like  the  influence  of  the  philo- 
sophy of  Blake,  the  influence  of  his  poetry,  though  distinct  and 
by  no  means  insignificant,  has  been  of  a  general  kind.  Blake's 
style  and  metre  appealed  to  Rossetti,  but  we  cannot  say  that  one 
particular  poem  of  Blake  took  a  stronger  hold  on  Rossetti's 
imagination  than  another.  A  direct  influence  of  Blake's  poetry 
cannot  be  traced,  as  far  as  I  can  see,  in  any  of  Rossetti's  poems, 
a  single  one  excepted.  This  poem  is  "The  Blessed  Damozel."*^ 
It  has  been  written  as  a  contribution  for  the  Germ,  **)  when 
Rossetti  was  still  in  the  prime  of  his  youth;  it  is  among  the 
first  and  at  the  same  time  one  of  the  best,   if  not  the  very  best 


*)  ibid.  p.  232. 

**)  The  Germ  was  a   periodical    devoted   to   the  art  principles  of 
the  Praeraphaelites.    Only  two  numbers  were  issued,  the  first  in  Jan.  1850. 


—    37     — 

poem  of  Rossetti  and  undoubtedly  the  poem  which  has  mostly 
served  of  all  Rossetti's  poetical  works  to  render  him  famous.  In 
this  lyric  which  sings  of  the  longings  of  a  holy  virgin  in  heaven 
for  the  lover  whom  she  left  behind  on  earth,  Rossetti  blends  in 
a  wonderful  way  human  devotion  and  pious  mysticism.  D.  G. 
Rossetti  himself  says  that  the  subject  of  the  Blessed  Damozel  had 
been  suggested  to  him  by  E.  A.  Poe's  poem  the  Raven ;  what 
Poe  had  done  for  earthly  love,  he  would  do  for  the  love  in 
heaven.  Critics  all  agree  that  this  poem  owes  little  to  any  pre- 
vious writer.  Benson  *)  sees  traces  of  Coleridge's  Ancient 
Mariner  in  it;  Joseph  Knight**)  speaks  of  Rossetti  being  inspired 
when  writing  this  poem  by  the  pictures  of  the  early  Italian 
painters;  even  if  these  influences  do  exist  they  are  very  vague; 
far  more  real  is  in  this  instance  Blake's  influence;  here  indeed 
Rossetti  owes  much  to  this  author. 

We  find  in  this  poem,  that  physical  facts  have  been  intro- 
duced in  an  abstract  subject,  a  very  bold  thing  to  do  which 
Rossetti  achieved  with  splendid  tact.  The  Blessed  Damozel  is 
represented  as  standing  on  the  rampart  of  Heaven;  she  sees  the 
souls  pass  by  her  like  thin  flames,  and 

^\  .  .  .  bowed  herself  and  stooped 
Out  of  the  circling  charm, 
Until  her  bosom  must  have  made 
The  bar  she  leaned  on  warm." 

(stanza  8.) 
And    again    afterwards    the    spiritual  virgin   most   ethereal 
of  beings 

''laid  her  face  between  her  hands  and  wept" 

(last  stanza.) 
Blake  very  often  introduces  physical  processes  in  abstract 
themes,  though  generally  the  effect  is  rather  grotesque,  owing  to 
Blake's  exaggeration.  As  an  example  for  this  a  '^Memorable 
Fancy"  can  serve  in  which  Blake  expi  esses  his  thoughts  about 
the   origin   of  the   "principle   of   the    human    perception".     This 

♦)  Rossetti,  by  A.  C.  Benson.     London  1904,  19()() 
**)  Life  of  D.  G:  Rossetti,  by  Joseph  Knight.    London  1887. 


—    38     — 

Memorable  Fancy  opens  with  the  words  "The  Prophets  Isaiah 
and  Ezechiel  dined  with  me"  and  somewhat  further  now  we  find 
written  "After  dinner  I  asked  Isaiah  etc."  I  need  not  point  out 
the  ridiculousness  of  representing  spiritual  visions  of  the  prophets 
as  taking  dinner;  but  yet  the  same  principle  which  Blake  followed 
here  has  been  honoured  in  the  Blessed  Damozel. 

Further  we  find  here  instances  of  Blake's  art  as  a  painter 
influencing  the  poetry  of  D.  G.  Rossetti.  Blake  made  illustrations 
for  the  Book  of  Job.  These  belong  to  his  most  splendid  engra- 
vings. On  plate  15  of  this  series  the  morning  stars  are  depic- 
ted, represented  as  an  endless  row  of  angels  singing,  with  hands 
uplifted  for  joy.  Under  the  engraving  is  written:  "When  the 
morning  stars  sang  together,  and  all  the  sons  of  God  shouted 
for  joy."  Rossetti  admired  this  engraving  highly  and  we  find 
the  image  of  the  "singing  stars"  in  the  Blessed  Damozel : 

"The  stars  sang  in  their  spheres" 

(stanza  9.) 
"Her  voice  was  like  the  voice  the  stars 
Had  when  they  sang  together". 

(stanza  10.) 
There  was  another  engraving  of  Blake's,  which  suggested  to 
Rossetti  the  seven  stars,  the  Blessed  Damozel  wears  in  her  hair, 
as  we  can  read  in  the  opening  stanza  of  this  poem. 
"And  the  stars  in  her  hair  were  seven." 

(stanza  1.) 
In  a  large  engraving  of  Blake  we  find  these  seven  stars 
adorning  the  hair  of  a  beautiful  figure  of  a  woman,  probably 
a  soul  admitted  into  eternity.  This  engraving  forms  the  title- 
page  of  Night  III  of  Young's  Night-Thoughts,  a  work  which  Blake 
illustrated. 

And  at  last  we  can  trace  Blake's  influence  in  the  eighteenth 
stanza  of  the  Blessed  Damozel.  Here  the  handmaidens  of  the 
virgin  are  enumerated,  and  the  series  of  these  melodious  names, 
which  do  not  all  of  them  represent  saints,  seem  to  have  been 
inserted  for  the  sake  of  euphony  only. 


—     39    — 

^We  two,  she  said,  will  seek  the  groves 

Where  the  lady  Mary  is, 

With  her  five  handmaidens,  whose  names 

Are  five  sweet  symphonies, 

Cecily,  Gertrude,  Magdalen, 

Margaret  and  Rosalys". 

(stanza  18.) 
This  same  kind  of  enumeration  we  find   in  more  than  one 
case  with  Blake,   the   greatest   resemblance   to   the   foregoing   is 
however   shown    in   the   Laughing    Song,    where    the    following 
stanza  occurs: 

"When  the  meadows  laugh  with  lively  green, 
And  the  grasshopper  laughs  in  the  merry  scene, 
When  Mary  and  Susan  and  Emily 
With  their  sweet  round  mouths  sing 

Ha,  ha,  he!" 
With  this  last  rather  striking  example  of  Blake's  literary 
influence  on  Dante  Gabriel  Rossetti  I  will  close  the  discussion 
of  Blake's  direct  influence.  I  think  I  have  fully  shown  the 
different  items  in  which  this  influence  existed,  also  how  it  made 
itself  felt  mostly  in  the  first  period  of  D.  G.  Rossetti's  literary 
career,  when  the  Praeraphaelitic  love  for  naive  and  natural  ex- 
pression could  not  but  result  in  a  great  appreciation  of  Blake. 
Putting  together  for,  the  sake  of  clearness,  the  principal  facts  which 
formed  the  bias  for  these  and  the  following  investigations  we 
find  in  chronological  order: 

a)  1847.    Rossetti  finds  in  the  British   Museum   the  Ms.  Book 

of  Blake,  now  known  as  "the  Rossetti  Ms." 

b)  1856.    Rossetti    receives    as    a    New -Year's    gift  Haley's*) 

"Ballad  of  the  Eagle"  illustrated  by  Blake  and  writes 

*)  William  Haley  (1745—1820)  was  "poet,  country  gentleman  and 
patron  of  art  and  literature."  He  was  a  great  friend  of  Blake  and  Cowper, 
whose  biography  he  wrote.  The  poems  he  wrote  are  of  no  literary  value; 
the  full  title  of  the  above  mentioned  poem  is:  "Ballads  on  Anecdotes 
relating  to  Animals." 


—     40     — 

in  a  letter  to  William  Allingham*):  "Old  Blake  is 
quite  as  loveable  by  his  oddities  as  by  his  genius, 
and  the  drawings  to  the  ballads  abound  with  both. 
Nearly  faultless  are  the  Eagle  and  the  Hermit's  Dog." 
"As  regards  engraving  these  drawings  —  with  the 
Job, —  present  the  only  good  medium  between  etching 
and  formal  line  that  I  ever  met  with." 

c)  1859.    Rossetti   enumerates   the    "Choicest  English  Poems" 

and  includes  Blake's  The  Angel.  (Letter  to  W.  Allingham, 
Christmas  1859.) 

d)  1860.   Alexander   Gilchrist   asks   Rossetti   to   send   him  the 

Ms.  Book  of  Blake,  which  he  wants  to  use  for  his 
work  on  Blake. 

e)  1861-63.  After  the  death  of  Alexander  Gilchrist  (Nov.  1861), 
Rossetti  together  with  Mrs.  A.  Gilchrist  completes 
Gilchrist's  work  on  Blake.  Rossetti  writes  a  finish- 
ing chapter  of  Blake's  Life  (included  now  in  his 
works.  Literary  Papers.  William  Blake  vol.  L  p.  443) 
but  his  chief  concern  was  the  editing  of  Blake's 
poems.  Out  of  the  confused  heap  of  Blake  Mss. 
he  chose  and  polished  and  even  made  small  al- 
terations, filled  up  an  occasional  gap  or  substituted 
an  unreadable  word  and  thus  gave  us  the  beautiful 
selection  of  Blake's  poems  we  find  in  the  second 
volume  of  Alexander  Gilchrist's  work  on  Blake. 

f)  1875.  Towards  1875  and  1881  Rossetti  writes  two  notices 
on  the  paintings  of  Samuel  Palmer**)  and  says  in 
these :  "The  possessors  of  his  works  have  what  must 
grow  in  influence,  just  as  the  possessors  of  Blake's 


*)  William  Allingham,  a  friend  of  Rossetti,  was  a  great  lover  of 
literature  and  art  and  a  sound  art  critic.  In  1874  he  was  appointed  editor  of 
Eraser's  Magazine,  and  for  many  years  edited  this  periodical. 

**)  Samuel  Palmer  (1805—1881)  was  an  English  landscape  painter  of 
the  romantic  school.  Besides  his  watercolours  he  is  known  by  his  beauti- 
ful illustrations  of  Milton's  Allegro  and  Penseroso. 


-    41    - 

creations  are  beginning  to  find"  and  further  on  "His 
works  are  clear  inspiration,  wiiich  is  a  point  very 
hard  to  attain  to  in  landscape  art;  but  in  him  one 
may  almost  say  that  it  was  as  evident  as  in  Blake." 
(Rossetti,  vol.  II,  p.  504  and  529.) 
g)  1880.  Rossetti  writes  a  sonnet  on  Blake.  (Five  English 
Poets,  vol.  I,  p.  338.) 

Influence  of  William  Blake's  painting. 

In  the  foregoing  pages  I  have  shown  how  Blake's  philosophy 
can  be  traced  in  the  art  works  of  Rossetti;  how  it  was  this 
philosophy  which  to  no  small  extent  directed  the  bent  of  Rossetti's 
genius  and  made  of  him  a  painter  of  imagination.  Next  to  the 
influence  of  Blake's  mysticism  on  Rossetti's  art  we  have  to  place 
the  influence  of  Blake's  thoughts  and  criticisms  upon  art  as  laid 
down  by  him  in  his  "Descriptive  Catalogue"  and  in  his  "Marginal 
Notes  to  the  Discourses  of  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds".  Though  Rossetti's 
admiration  for  Blake's  drawings,  engravings,  and  coloured  prints 
must  have  been  great,  as  the  reminiscences  of  these  productions 
were  used  in  one  of  Rossetti's  best  poems,  in  the  Blessed  Damo- 
zel,  as  I  pointed  out  before,  yet  the  traces  we  find  of  Blake's 
artistic  influence  in  Rossetti's  art  works  are  few  and  of  a  com- 
paratively small  value.*) 

In  1798  there  appeared  the  works  of  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds, 
his  "^Discourses  on  Painting".  Blake  wrote  marginal  notes  to  these 
works,  first  in  1803  and  for  a  second  time  about  1820,  and 
vehemently  criticized  them.  His  other  critical  opinions  have  been 
expressed  in  a  descriptive  Catalogue**)  which    he   wrote  for  an 

*)  It  may  be  that  the  colouring  of  Rossetti's  pictures  forms  the  one 
exception  here;  but  as  comparatively  few  pictures  of  D.  G.  Rossetti  were 
accessible  to  me  in  the  originals,  I  cannot  form  an  adequate  opinion  in 
this  matter. 

**)  A  descriptive  Catalogue  of  Pictures,  poetical  and  historical  Inven- 
tions painted  by  William  Blake  in  Water  Colours  being  the  ancient  Method 
of  Fresco  Painting  restored  and  Drawings  for  public  Inspection  and  for 
sale  by  private  Contract.    London  1809. 


—     42     —  . 

exhibition  of  his  own  works,  which  took  place  in  1809.  Both 
in  his  Marginal  Notes  and  in  the  descriptive  Catalogue  we  find 
the  most  violent  abuse  of  the  Venetian  and  Flemish  Schools, 
of  the  contemporary  English  school  of  landscape  painters,  fathered 
by  Gainsborough  and  against  the  art  of  J.  Reynolds  himself. 
Blake  found  that  the  typical  in  art  had  a  higher  effect  on  the 
mind  than  the  individual;  this  he  sees  in  Raphael  and  Michael- 
Angelo,  while  in  Titian,  Rubens,  and  Rembrandt  he  sees  the  indi- 
vidual, the  form  of  the  model  who  sat  for  the  pictures.  Further 
he  accuses  those  painters  of  generalizing  viz.  of  an  arrangement 
of  effects  of  colouring,  texture  and  shadow  so  put  together  as  to 
prevent  a  picture  to  present  clearly  its  individual  parts,  limbs  or 
features.  This  last  fault  he  thinks  no  oil-painting  escapes,  hence 
his  preference  for  water  colours  and  drawings.  Lastly  he  strongly 
objects  to  the  colouring  of  those  painters.  The  terms  in  which 
Blake  puts  forth  these  opinions  are  those  of  the  most  violent 
abuse  and  the  grossest  exaggeration. 

Rubens  is  called  an  "outrageous  demon",  of  his  colouring 
Blake  remarks  that  it  is  "most  contemptible".  "The  shadows  are 
of  a  filthy  brown,  somewhat  of  the  colour  of  excrement"  etc. 
(Descriptive  Catalogue.)  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds  and  his  school  are 
called  "a  gang  of  cunning  hired  knaves",  and  about  his  method 
of  generalisation  Blake  remarks:  "to  generalize  is  to  be  an  idiot. 
General  knowledges  are  those  knowledges  that  idiots  possess". 
(Descriptive  Catalogue.)  Elsewhere  Gainsborough  is  compared 
to  a  blurring  and  blotting  demon,  and  to  the  Venetian  masters 
in  general  the  terms  of  "journeymen"  and  ^'•knaves"  have  been 
applied.  Though  personal  taste  of  course  can  be  the  reason  why 
Blake  appreciated  the  art  of  Michael  Angelo,  DUrer,  and  Rafael 
more,  yet  it  is  an  extraordinary  instance  of  narrow-mindedness 
to  reject  altogether  such  painters  as  Rembrandt,  Rubens,  and  Cor- 
reggio.  We  can  explain  this  hatred,  however,  when  we  compare 
with  it  the  equally  strong  disapprobation  Blake  utters  in  the  case 
of  the  philosophy  of  Bacon ;  the  worship  of  nature  of  Swedenborg 
and  Dante;  and  the  empirical  science  represented  to  him  by 
Newton.    We  find  the  following  epitaph  on  Bacon : 


-    43     - 

"0!  Reader,  behold  the  Philosopher's  grave! 

He  was  born  quite  a  Fool,  but  he  died  quite  a  Knave". 

On  Dante  the  following  note  has  been  written  by  Blake  on 
a  drawing  of  Homer: 

"Everything  in  Dante  shows  that  for  tyrannical  purposes  he 
has  made  this  world  the  foundation  of  all  and  as  poor  Cha-Bell  (?) 
said:  Nature  not  memory,  thou  art  my  goddess". 

Of  Swedenborg  he  tells  us  in  the  Marriage  of  Heaven  and 
Hell  that  "he  wrote  down  all  the  old  falsehoods"  by  which 
falsehoods  Swedenborg's  belief  in   Nature   must   be    understood. 

And  in  Jerusalem  we  find  in  the  following  lines  the  idea 
expressed  that  Newton  and  Locke's  doctrines  are  pernicious  to 
mankind. 

'^The  Spectre  like  a  hoar-frost  and  a 

mildew  rose  over  Albion; 

Saying:  I  am  God,  o  sons  of  men,  I  am 
your  rational  power. 

Am  I  not  Bacon  and  Newton  and  Locke 

who  teach  humility  to  men ! 

Who  teach  doubt  and  experiment". 

We  see  in  the  foregoing  examples  that  besides  the  Venetian 
and  Flemish  schools  of  painting  Blake's  hatred  was  enflamed 
against  the  belief  in  nature,  against  empirical  science  and  rational 
philosophy;  for  Blake  saw  here  everywhere  hindrances  for 
the  development  of  the  imaginative  faculties.  Faith 
in  mysticism,  in  supernatural  agency,  in  heavenly  inspiration,  in 
the  exulting  purifying  influence  of  the  art  of  the  visionary  could 
not  be  expressed  in  the  solid  worldliness  of  style  of  the  afore- 
named painters,  neither  exist  in  the  minds  of  men  who  accepted 
nothing  that  had  not  been  sufficiently  proved.  For  Blake  to  whom 
"imagination  was  the  principal  goddess"  this  was  ample  reason 
for  violent  hatred.  It  was  not  against  the  art  itself  of  those 
painters  he  revolted,  but  against  the  meaning  and  influence  of  it. 


—     44     — 

That  he  could  even  appreciate  Rembrandt  as  an  artist  is 
proved  by  his  letter  to  the  Rev.  Dr.  Trusler  (16^^  p^^g  ^1^799^  to 
whom  Blake  writes  alluding  to  paintings  he  had  made  for  him: 
"You  will  have  a  number  of  cabinet  pictures  that  will  not  be 
unworthy  of  a  scholar  of  Rembrandt  and  Teniers,  whom  I  have  studied 
no  less  than  Michael  Angelo  and  Raphael".  But  Blake  wanted 
with  all  the  power  that  dwelt  in  him  to  bring  back  the  art  of 
painting  in  new  correspondence  with  the  world  of  imaginative 
and  intellectual  ideals.  He  considered  as  the  greatest  represen- 
tatives of  artists,  who  entirely  neglected  the  intellectual  and 
metaphysical  meaning  in  art,  those  of  the  Venetian  and  Flemish 
schools.  Here  the  evil  had  taken  root  which  resulted  in  an  entire 
absence  of  lofty  ideas  and  poetical  motives.  It  must  not  be 
forgotten  at  what  a  low  ebb  the  English  art  of  the  beginning  of 
the  nineteenth  century  was,  and  how  difficult  a  position  Blake  had 
taken  up  against  the  current  ideas  of  conventionalism. 

As  landscape  painters  we  find  Callcott,  Thomas  Creswick, 
Stanfield  and  Frederick  Lee,  all  good  executants  but  not  free  from 
artificiality.  Other  painters  are  Fuseli  (Fussli)  and  Benjamin  West, 
who  undoubtedly  not  without  genius,  stood  under  the  several  in- 
fluences of  Dutch,  German,  and  Italian  schools  and  produced  not 
a  single  original,  inspired  picture  with  an  intellectual  grasp  of 
the  subject  or  a  rendering  of  feelings  neither  melodramatic  nor 
theatrical. 

Sick  of  the  correctly  drawn,  but  highly  conventional  insipid 
genre  pictures  of  the  day  Blake  fell  into  another  extreme  and 
followed  the  rule  that  by  far  the  principal  aim  of  painting  was 
to  bring  home  to  men  intellectual  or  emotional  truths,  that  for 
this  purpose  correctness  in  drawing,  adherence  to  the  natura 
evidence  of  the  senses  in  colour  and  form  might  even  be  sacri- 
ficed. These  principles  found  utterance  in  his  violent  criticisms 
on  one  hand  and  besides  were  expressed  in  the  quaint  and 
weird,  often  even  grotesque,  qualities  of  his  pictures  and  dra- 
wings. Before  everything  else  Blake's  paintings  want  to  express 
his  ideas  and  in  this  he  succeeded,  perhaps  because  he  really 
had  ideas  to  express.    Therefore  his  pictures,  though  full  of  man- 


—     45     — 

nerisms  and  misdrawings,  touch  us  more  even  than  any  amount 
of  capable  and  accomplished  works  dealing  with  imaginative 
themes,  but  lacking  irhagination.  We  find  in  these  works  a  great 
preference  for  the  Gothic  style;  Blake,  in  1773,  when  an  apprentice 
to  Basire,  the  engraver,  had  been  sent  to  make  drawings  in 
Westminister  Abbey.  For  five  years  he  was  occupied  in  copying 
the  monuments  of  the  Abbey,  and  his  love  for  the  Gothic  style 
never  left  him  during  all  his  life.  "-^Gothic"  he  would  say  "is 
living  form".  Nowhere  he  has  given  more  perfect  expression  ol 
his  love  for  it  than  in  his  Illustrations  of  the  Book  of  Job.*) 

Also  he  owed  much  to  the  formation  of  his  style  to  Michael 
Angelo,  but  his  knowledge  of  the  master  was  derived  from  copies 
and  prints,  the  only  material  available,  which  exaggerated  the 
muscular  development.  (It  was  not  until  photographs  of  the 
Sistine  frescos  were  available  for  study  that  Michael  Angelo 
l)ecame  truly  known).  Hence  we  find  exaggerated  muscular 
human  figures  in  Blake's  works,  especially  in  his  illustrations  to 
the  Prophetic  Books,  his  male  figures  above  all  suffer  from  this 
fault.  In  his  females  is  notable  a  graceful  sweeping  curve  of 
the  back-line,  which  together  with  the  large  eyes  and  oval  faces 
gives  these  figures  a  peculiar  charm  and  a  great  tenderness  of 
expression.  His  innumerable  floating  angelic  figures  can  hardly 
be  surpassed  by  any  artist  as  to  their  immaterial,  heavenly 
aspect. 

Remarkable  is  also  Blake's  colouring,  which  is  of  an  extra- 
ordinary great  brilliancy  and  transparency.  Wonderful  in  colouring 
is  e.  g.  Blake's  representation  of  Jehovah  which  we  find  on  the 
title  page  of  the  Book  of  Europe.  Jehovah  is  represented  here 
as  an  old  man,  the  personification  of  the  rigid  rational  laws,  the 
creator  of  bodily  existence,  in  accordance  with  the  contents  of 
the  Book.     From  a  fiery  red  sun  he  bends  himself  down  in  the 


♦)  These  illustrations  were  made  in  1821  for  Mr.  John  Linnell  after 
some  drawings  previously  executed  for  Captain  Butt.  These  engravings 
are  reproduced  with  great  fidelity  and  clearness  by  Alexander  Gilchrist. 


—     46     — 

vast  black  masses  of  space  and  with  a  pair  of  golden  compasses 
gives  measure  and  number  to  infinity.*) 

Splendid  in  colour  are  also  many'  of  Blake's  "frescoes". 
Blake  indicated  with  this  name  a  particular  process  which  in  its 
details  is  as  yet  not  known  to  us^  but  which  mainly  consisted 
in  painting  on  a  basis  of  plaster  and  carpenter's  lime.  A  process 
partly  already  used  by  Cennino  Cennini  in  1437  and  which 
George  Cumberland**)  mentions  in  his  ^Thoughts  on  Outline". 
In  all  probability  Blake,  who  was  an  intimate  friend  of  Cumber- 
land had  his  knowledge  of  this  process  from  him,  though  he 
himself  professes  that  his  dead  brother  Robert  in  a  dream  advised 
him  a  particular  mixture  of  water  colours,  and  that  further  the 
Greek  artist  Appelles,  viz.  his  spirit,  had  be^n  his  teacher  in 
colouring.  One  of  the  most  beautiful  frescoes  is  the  Procession 
to  mount  Calvary,  a  symphony  of  colours  of  an  exquisite  tender- 
ness and  great  satiated  mellowness.***)  Very  beautiful  and 
executed  with  infinite  care  and  patience  are  the  accessories  in 
Blake's  drawings  and  water  colours;  everywhere  in  his  illustrations 
of  the  Prophetic  Books,  in  his  engravings  of  the  Book  of  Job  or 
of  Young's  Night  Thoughts  we  find  marginal  drawings  and  small 
interspersed  symbolical  paintings,  which  are  perfect  miniatures. 
Generally  these  sketches  are  of  a  decorative  character  consisting 
of  animals:  serpents,  spiders,  and  fishes;  often  also  sprigs  of 
green  with  a  great  tenderness  of  outline  are  used,  and  after 
Blake's  stay  in  Felpham****),  we  find  occasionally  small  landscapes 
introduced  in  his   paintings,  a  low    horizon,   a   winding   path,  a 

*)  Blake  took  the  image  from  Milton's  Paradise  Lost  VII,  225  where 
we  find  the  following  lines: 

"He  took  the  golden  compasses,  prepared 
In  God's  eternal  store,  to  circumscribe 
This  Universe,  and  all  created  things." 
**)  George  Cumberland  was  a  contemporary  of  Blake,  a  native  of 
Bristol.    Blake  writes   to   him  "I   study  your   outlines   as   usual,  just  as  if 
they  were  antique".    (26*''  Aug.  1799). 
***)  National  Gallery  London. 

****)  Blake  spent  three  years  of  his  life  1800—1803  on  the  sea  coast 
in  Sussex,  in  the  village  of  Felpham. 


—     47    — 

running  stream,  all  showing  great  beauties  of  colouring  and 
patient  carefulness  of  execution.  To  Blake's  mannerisms,  to  his 
preference  for  long  noses  and  flabby  cheeks,  to  his  impossibly 
contorted  figures,  I  need  not  draw  attention,  they  are  only  too 
apparent  from  all  his  works.  His  innumerable  misdrawings  which 
he  might  easily  have  corrected,  of  course  lessen  the  impression 
his  pictures  make  on  us,  so  does  his  want  of  dramatic  power; 
we  feel  astonishment  when  we  look  at  the  violent  passions,  the 
awful  scenes  Blake  puts  before  our  eyes,  we  never  turn  away 
from  them  with  a  shudder  of  dismay.  Neither  did  Blake  escape 
altogether  the  faults  of  the  century  he  lived  in,  often  e.  g.  in  the 
illustrations  of  Young's  Night  Thoughts  we  find  the  theatrical 
stiffness  and  melodramatic  effects  of  the  later  18**^  century  painting. 

Yet  though  his  faults  be  many,  his  work  leaves  an  impression 
on  the  mind,  and  this  is  one  test  of  vital  work;  for  after  all  it 
is  expression  which  counts  in  art. 

It  was  to  rebel  against  the  total  want  of  expression  in  works 
of  art  that  in  the  autumn  of  1848  the  celebrated  Praeraphaelitic 
Brotherhood  was  constituted.  The  story  of  the  origin  of  the 
brotherhood  has  been  told  again  and  again,  so  I  may  assume  it 
to  be  generally  known  and  will  not  repeat  it  here.  The  central 
idea  of  it  was  a  revolt  against  conventionality.  As  Blake  had 
done  thirty  years  before,  they  stood  up  in  arms  against  the 
degeneration  of  the  English  art,  now  in  the  hands  of  men  like 
Wilkie,  Leslie  and  Mulready,  men  who  traded  with  cheap  emotions 
and  conventional  optimism,  who  had  no  fundamental  conception, 
no  imagination,  no  force  of  expression.  William  Rossetti  thus 
enumerates  the  Praeraphaelitic  aims : 

a)  To  have  genuine  ideas  to  express; 

b)  To  study  nature  attentively,  so  as  to  know  how  to  ex- 
press them; 

c)  To  sympathize  with  what  is  direct  and  serious  and  heart- 
felt in  previous  art  to  the  exclusion  of  what  is  conventional 
and  self-parading  and  learned  by  rote. 


—    48     -- 

They  thought  that  the  age  in  which  these  principles  were 
mostly  cherished,  was  the  age  of  the  early  Italian  masters.  They 
saw  from  Giotto  to  Leonardo  strong  evidences  of  grace  and 
decorative  charm,  observation  and  definition  of  certain  appearances 
of  nature,  and  patient  and  loving,  but  not  mechanical  labour. 
They  did  not  take  these  earlier  painters  as  their  models,  but  they 
wished  to  revert  the  principles  of  an  artistic  age  in  which  pain- 
ting was  carried  on,  not  after  a  dominating  tradition  but  on 
strong  individual  lines.  In  technique  the  Brotherhood  took  the 
the  use  of  primary  colours,  avoided  low  tones  and  dark  back- 
grounds and  developed  each  individual  portion  of  a  picture  with 
the  same  fidelity.  The  only  modern  painter  in  whom  they  found 
an  original  and  independent  spirit  was  Blake.  Moreover  the 
movement  was  literary  as  well  as  artistic  as  its  leader  was  both 
poet  and  painter;  the  theories  written  on  art  were  as  many  as 
the  pictures  painted.  In  Blake's  critical  opinions  Rossetti  found 
many  criticisms  which  he  held  among  the  best  ever  expressed 
on  art.  Blake's  aversion  to  Rembrandt  and  Rubens,  to  Reynolds 
and  the  Venetian  painters  was  shared  for  the  greater  part  by 
Rossetti  who,  himself  a  man  of  violent  temper*),  could  appreciate 
Blake's  strong  abuse  of  these  painters,  who  had  abandoned  the 
high  ideals  of  art.  When  in  Brussels  1849  visiting  the  Picture 
Gallery,  Rossetti  writes  to  his  brother:  "One  room  was  full  of 
Rubens,  so  we  held  aloof".  In  his  journey  through  Belgium  he 
admires  the  mystic  paintings  of  van  Eyck,  especially  his  Mystic 
Marriage  of  St.  Catherine  and  the  Saviour,  but  it  is  interesting 
to  see  how  he  was  to  a  greater  extent  fascinated  by  the  power 
of  another  Flemish  primitive,  Memling,  on  account  of  the  intellec- 
tual superiority  of  the  latter.  Of  Rubens  he  writes  from  Antwerp 
again:  "Rubens  seems  to  be  considered  here  a  common  fool 
enough".  The  aversion  to  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds  showed  itself  in 
the  nick-name  "Sloshua"  given  to  him  by  Millais  and  suggested 

*)  In  F.  Madox  Brown's  diary  we  find  written  about  Rossetti's 
temper:  "He  has  left  off  abusing  his  enemies,  that  apparently  having 
lost  its  zest  from  overuse  —  and  now  vituperates  his  friends  —  or  those 
of  the  person  addressed,  as  more  provoking". 


—     49     — 

by  the  adjective  "sloshy"  which  was  applied  to  all  indefinite, 
feeble  and  superficial  work. 

Rossetti  however  did  not  share  Blake's  antipathy  to  the 
Venetian  masters,  whose  colouring  deeply  affected  his  paintings, 
neither  did  he  partake  of  Blake's  admiration  for  Michael  Angelo 
to  whose  pictures,  which  he  saw  in  Paris,  he  had  a  great 
aversion. 

Except  the  abuse  of  the  afore-named  painters  he  also  found 
here  the  rule  not  to  generalize,  but  to  execute  everything, 
down  to  the  smallest  detail,  with  equal  care.  We  see  how  he 
followed  this  rule  in  his  first  pictures  e.  g.  in  his  "Girlhood  of 
the  Virgin"  we  find  a  trellis  work  overgrown  with  leaves  executed 
with  minute  care;  exactly  tne  same  carefulness  is  bestowed  on 
the  many  accessories  of  a  symbolic  nature  which  are  found  on 
this  picture  e.  g.;  the  dove  with  a  golden  halo  round  its  head; 
the  lily  and  the  scroll  on  which  we  find  written  the  words:  '^Tot 
dolores,  tot  gaudia".  Though  afterwards  Rossetti  did  not  exhibit 
these  characteristics  to  the  same  extent,  yet  we  always  find  that 
great  care  has  been  taken  in  the  execution  of  the  details,  as  may 
be  seen  in  the  dream-like  little  landscapes  which  often  form  the 
background  of  his  pictures.  Such  a  mystic  landscape  we  find 
in  Dante's  Dream  seen  through  a  window  at  the  back  of  the 
pictures,  also  in  the  Blessed  Damozel  we  have  little  peeps  of 
Heaven;  in  both  pictures  the  landscapes  are  beautiful  examples 
of  minuteness  of  execution. 

Like  Blake  Rossetti  thought  the  typical  in  art  of  a  higher 
effect  than  the  individual,  like  him  he  sought  to  free  himself 
from  the  model.  This  has  given  rise  to  the  idea  that  Rossetti 
used  as  his  models  only  two  types  of  heads,  that  of  his  wife 
and  that  of  Mrs.  Morris.  This  is  a  great  error.  He  painted  from 
seventeen  models  in  all.  Mrs.  Beyer  sat  for  the  picture  Joan  of 
Arc;  Mrs.  Hannay  for  Dante's  Dream;  Miss  Herbet,  the  actress, 
for  Bocca  Baciata  etc.  Rossetti  omitted  accidental  individual 
differences,  and  this  produced  together  A^ith  his  favourite  man- 
nerisms, the  long  necks,  over-slim  hands  and  over-full  lips,  the 
impression  of  his  painting  for  ever  the  same  woman. 


—     50     -- 

Rossetti  is  a  lover  of  the  Gothic  style  as  many  of  his 
pictures  clearly  show,  and  though  of  course,  it  is  difficult  to  say 
by  whom  this  love  was  kindled,  yet  it  is  certain  that  his  study 
of  Blake  could  not  but  strengthen  it. 

In  the  different  works  about  Rossetti's  art  there  is  generally 
found  the  idea  that  his  art  may  be  divided  in  two  or  sometimes 
three  different  periods.  In  his  first  period,  called  Praeraphaelitic, 
Rossetti  is  represented  as  the  painter  of  religious  pictures ;  then 
a  second  period,  a  kind  of  transition,  is  assumed  to  prepare  as 
it  were  the  great  change  that  comes  over  Rossetti  and  makes 
of  him  in  his  last  and  most  important  period  a  painter  of  imagina- 
tion. I  believe  this  view  of  Rossetti's  art  to  be  not  the  right 
one.  Rossetti  was  a  painter  of  imagination  from  the  very  first 
of  his  artistic  career.  The  idea  that  the  art  of  his  day,  in  order 
to  rise  from  its  low  ebb,  ought  to  be  brought  into  contact  again 
with  the  world  of  intellectual  and  emotional  ideals  Rossetti  found 
in  Blake's  doctrines  on  art  and  in  his  works.  This  idea  he 
adopted  enthusiastically  from  the  very  first,  and  never  abandoned 
it  throughout  his  life.  Hence  the  relatively  small  attention  he 
pays  to  technical  shortcomings  in  his  paintings.  Always  the  idea 
predominates  over  the  matter;  actions  are  allowed  to  appear  as 
strained;  compositions  as  naive,  even  the  due  proportions  of 
things  to  each  other  may  be  lost  sight  of,  provided  only  the 
emotional  and  intellectual  parts  are  given  due  prominence. 

In  the  beginning  of  his  career  Rossetti  thought  that  the 
early  Italian  art  was  the  most  fitted  medium  to  express  his.  con- 
ception. His  two  pictures  dealing  with  religious  subjects  "Girl- 
hood of  the  Virgin"  and  "Ecce  Ancilla  Domini"  try  to  render 
mystic  feelings  and  thoughts  by  stiff  decorative  gestures,  naive 
grouping,  and  a  wealth  of  mediaeval  symbolic  accessory.  Rossetti 
however  seems  to  yearn  after  a  simpler,  deeper  way  of  expressing 
the  same  thing.  It  is  interesting  to  see  how  he  tries  all  different 
styles  of  painting  and  of  colouring  and  slowly  through  many 
phases  finds  the  way  of  expressing  his  emotions  and  ideas 
best  fitted  to  his  exotic  genius,  and  gives  us  that  strange  series 
of  half  and  three-qiiarter  length  female  figures  which  to  most 
people  are  all  that  is  meant  in  art  by  the  name  of  Rossetti. 


—     51     — 

After  having  left  the  early  Italian  style  Rossetti  tries  the 
genre-picture  painted  from  modern  life.  From  all  kinds  of 
paintings  this  kind  of  picture  is  perhaps  suited  worst  of  all  to 
express  real  emotion  and  represent  a  true  phase  of  the  intellect, 
hence  Rossetti's  greatest  genre-picture  ^Found"  was  never  finished, 
though  in  1882,  more  than  twenty-five  years  after  the  original 
painting  was  begun,  Rossetti  made  a  fruitless  attempt  to  finish  it. 
It  would  carry  me  too  far  to  talk  in  particular  of  all  the  different 
phases  Rossetti's  genius  passes  through,  phases  which  were  often 
taken  up  again  after  some  intervening  years  and  are  crossing  and 
recrossing  each  other. 

From  all  his  different  efforts  to  find  expression  for  the 
same  thing  I  will  speak  only  of  that  one  more  in  detail  which 
was  directly  influenced  by  Blake.  We  find  paintings  by  Rossetti 
full  of  movement,  crowded  with  figures,  all  of  which  have  a 
symbolical  meaning.  The  best  example  of  this  is  his  pencil 
drawing  "The  Question".  It  symbolizes  the  cruel  fate  of  men  in 
dying.  In  a  solitary  wood  far  from  the  haunts  of  men  a  Sphinx 
is  sitting,  the  three  ages  have  found  their  way  to  her,  wanting 
her  to  solve  the  riddle  of  life.  The  boy  has  put  his  question 
and  the  answer  has  made  him  fall  down;  the  man 
inquires  after  his  fate,  the  old  man  painfully  strives  to  reach  the 
Sphinx.  Blake  deals  with  the  same  subject  in  the  illustration  of 
Blair's*)  Grave  (Plate  5)  "T  is  here  all  meet",  viz.  in  the  valley 
of  death,  which  Blake  depicts  as  a  mountain  cave.  Here  old  age 
creeps  about,  here  come  the  father  and  his  daughter,  the  mother 
and  her  children,  the  lonely  virgin  and  the  hardy  peasant,  all 
those  whom  death  reaps. 

Besides  this  drawing  many  others  of  Rossetti  use  Blake's 
way  of  expressing  emotions  or  ideas.  In  a  water  colour  "The 
Gate  of  Memory"  a  woman  half  hidden  behind  a  pillar  sees  the 
past  years  of  her  life  before  her  in  the  figures  of  ever  so  many 
maidens.    The  same  allegorical  image  Blake  uses  in  one  of  his 

*)  Robert  Blair  (1699-1746)  was  a  learned  Scotch  clergyman  of  great 
virtue,  he  wrote  one  poem  "The  Grave"  which  shows  a  great  resemblance 
to  Young's  Night  Tiioughts. 


—    52    — 

illustrations  for  Young's  Night  Thoughts  where  a  virtuous  old  man 
converses  with  the  past  hours  of  his  life,  some  of  the  hours, 
winged  females,  bring  their  report  to  heaven,  others  crowd  around  him. 

In  Rossetti's  "Boat  of  Love",  an  illustration  to  Dante's 
Vita  Nuova,  we  discern  Blake's  influence  in  the  angel  standing 
at  the  stern  and  in  the  graceful  back-line  of  the  woman.  More 
distinctly  Blakean  is  the  floating  figure  of  an  Angel  Rossetti  drew 
as  frontispiece  for  his  sonnet  sequel ;  compared  to  Blake's  sweeping 
figures  this  angel,  however,  lacks  in  grace  and  seems  hopelessly 
solid  for  a  soul  of  one  "dead  deathless"  hour  which  it  represents. 
Many  other  pictures  and  drawings  of  Rossetti  besides  the  above 
mentioned  prove  that  he  for  a  while  tried  to  express  his  ideas 
like  Blake  by  scenes  full  of  action,  full  of  movement;  here  emotions 
are  represented  by  floating  angels,  strange  half-human  beings, 
winged  flowers  etc.,  though  Rossetti  never  falls  into  the  exagge- 
ration of  Blake,  always  keeps  the  interpretation  of  his  visions 
within  certain  limits. 

At  last  after  years  of  seeking  and  striving  Rossetti's  genius 
found  in  the  above  mentioned  female  portraits  its  full  development, 
the  true  medium  for  its  mystic  and  emotional  outpourings.  Could 
not  he  have  found  the  prototype  of  his  women  in  a  copy  of  Blake's 
Book  of  Thel  in  the  British  Museum?  This  conjecture  is 
not  impossible,  for  here  we  find  a  wonderful  lovely  image  of  Thel, 
tall,  slender  and  graceful  with  a  small  full  mouth  and  large  ex- 
pressive eyes.  On  a  background  of  deep  satiated  red  this  fair- 
haired  long-necked  maiden  clothed  in  pale  yellow,  stands  out  in 
beautiful  relief  and  reminds  us  of  many  a  sketch  of  Rossetti's 
splendid  women-figures. 

A  considerable  influence  Blake  has  had  on  Rossetti's  colouring. 
I  have  found  that  Blake's  colours  are  always,  at  least  as  far  as 
time  has  not  spoiled  them,  of  great  simplicity,  purity,  brilliancy, 
and  transparency.  These  same  qualities  I  have  observed  in  many 
of  the  pictures  of  Rossetti,  for  instance  in  "Beata  Beatrix",  the 
"Day  Dream"  and  ''Ecce  Ancilla  Domini";  in  others  I  saw  a 
certain  dim,  opulent  richness  of  colouring  viz.  in  the  watercolour 
Lucrecia  Borgia;    in   his    later   works    his   colours  seem  to  have 


—    53    — 

become  hot  and  jarring.  Though  both  painters  show  the  same 
brilliant  and  glowing  qualities  in  colouring,  yet  it  is  not  necessarily 
to  Blake  that  Rossetti  had  to  go  for  the  studying  of  this  brilliancy 
and  transparency  of  colouring,  as  many  other  artists,  for  instance  the 
Venetians,  also  possess  these  qualities  in  a  high  degree.  However 
Ruskin  in  his  "Art  of  England"  tells  us  that  Rossetti  as  to  his 
colouring  was  much  affected  by  studying  illuminated  Mss.  and 
we  may  conclude  from  this  that  it  was  highly  probable  that  Blake's 
illuminated  Mss.,  splendid  as  they  are,  were  consulted  for  this 
purpose. 

I  believe  that  it  has  been  made  clear  in  the  foregoing  pages 
that  the  epithet  of  "great  artistic  forerunner  of  Dante  Gabriel 
Rossetti"  so  often  bestowed  upon  Blake  in  the  several  biographies 
of  Rossetti,  is  indeed  fully  deserved  by  this  poet.  When  we 
consider  the  influence  of  Blake  as  a  philosopher,  as  a  poet,  and 
as  a  painter,  we  see  that  it  is  above  all  Blake's  mysticism  which 
penetrates  all  Rossetti's  work  and  lends  it  such  a  peculiar,  inde- 
finable charm;  a  charm  which  will  cause  his  pictures  and  poems 
to  be  remembered  when  the  works  of  far  greater  authors  and 
painters  will  have  been  forgotten.  The  influence  of  Blake's 
mysticism  has  also  been  the  only  philosophical  influence  which  I 
could  trace  in  Rossetti's  works,  the  very  few  cases  excepted, 
which  of  course  cannot  be  traced,  in  which  Rossetti  was  influenced 
directly  by  Swedenborg.  At  least  one  example  of  this  exists  in  the 
Sonnet  "Her  Heaven"  where  the  lines  occur: 

"If  to  grow  old  in  Heaven  is  to  grow  young 
(As  the  Seer  saw  and  said),  then  blest  were  he 
With  youth  for  evermore,  whose  heaven  should  be 
True  Woman,  she  whom  these  weak  notes  have  sung."  *) 
In  an  explanatory  note  to  this  sonnet  W.  M.  Rossetti  informs 
us   that   in    those    lines    with    "the  Seer"  Swedenborg  is  meant. 
Though  of  course  the  possibility   is  not  excluded   that  in  more 
cases  Swedenborg   directly    influenced  Rossetti,   yet  compared  to 
Blake's,   this   influence   is   so  small,   and   moreover  tends  in  the 
same  direction,  that  we  need  not  take  it  into  consideration. 
•)  House  of  Lite,  Sonnet  LVIII.  Vol.  1.  p.  204. 


—     54     — 

Thus  far  I  spoke  of  the  direct  influence  of  Blake  on  Rossetti, 
in  one  case  at  least  I  could  clearly  trace  an  indirect  influence. 
Rossetti's  prose  tales  "Hand  and  Soul"  and  "Saint  Agnes  of 
Intercession"  show,  especially  in  their  style,  the  influence  of 
Charles  Wells*). 

Rossetti  cherished  at  a  time  an  exaggerated  admiration  for 
the  works  of  this  author.  He  even  proposes  to  have  his  scriptural 
drama  "Joseph  and  his  Brethren"  acted,  but  is  kept  back,  from 
this  purpose  by  Ruskin,  who  judges  this  drama  to  be  not  without 
some  good  descriptive  parts,  but  as  a  whole  finds  it  "wrong" 
(Letter  of  Ruskin  to  Rossetti,  Denmark  Hill,  1854).  And  indeed 
this  drama  full  of  incongruities  and  quite  Blakean  in  its  exalted 
and  primeval  poetry,  would  have  been  a  decided  failure  on  the 
stage.  —  This  same  admiration  Rossetti  had  for  the  prose  tales 
of  Wells,  collected  under  the  title  "Stories  after  Nature".  These 
stories  possess  a  sort  of  incongruous  beauty,  a  savour  of  impos- 
sibility which  baffles  us  and  more  or  less  spoils  our  delight  in 
them.  But  nevertheless  their  beauties  are  undeniable,  beauties 
of  a  subtle  etherealised  style  as  we  also  find  in  "Hand  and  Soul" 
and  "Saint  Agnes  of  Intercession";  beauties  consisting  in  a  great 
wealth  of  imagery,  subtly  chosen,  in  order  to  show  forth  the 
mysticism  which  underlies  all  of  these  stories.  I  need  hardly  say, 
that  the  prose  tales  of  Rossetti  abound  in  this  kind  of  imagery, 
though  Rossetti  for  all  the  melody  of  his  style  never  absolutely 
sacrifices  sense  to  melody  as  happens  occasionally  to  Wells. 
Another  quality  which  both  authors  have  in  common,  is  that, 
perhaps  owing  to  the  dimness  of  the  plots,  the  stories  are  not 
carried  to  a  satisfactory  end.  "Saint  Agnes  of  Intercession^'  breaks 
off  in  the  middle,  as  is  also  the  case  with  the  most  poetical  story 

*)  Charles  Wells,  f  1878,  wrote  under  the  name  of  H.  L.  Howard. 
He  wrote  "Stories  after  Nature",  printed  in  1822  and  reprinted  in  1891. 
London.  In  1824  appeared  his  scriptural  drama  "Joseph  and  his  Brethren" 
reprinted  in  London  1876.  Wells  is  an  author  of  great  skill  and  excepting 
J.  J.  Garth  Wilkinson  the  author  of  an  obscure  book  "Inprovisiations  of 
the  Spirit",  seems  to  be  one  of  the  few  direct  poetical  imitators  of  Blake, 
using  the  same  phraseology  and  having  the  same  mystical  faith  as  his 
great  predecessor. 


—    55     — 

of  Wells  called  "Zara,  the  rich  Man's  Daughter";  but  even  when 
the  stories  are  brought  to  an  end,  we  feel  the  effort,  which  it 
cost  the  author,  and  more  or  less  our  delight  is  spoiled. 

When  considering  the  influence  of  Blake's  literary  productions,  I 
found  that  it  was  greatly  surpassed  by  Blake's  influence  as  a 
philosopiier  and  also  that  the  works  of  several  other  poets  made 
as  deep  or  perhaps  a  deeper  impression  on  the  mind  of  Rossetti. 
In  the  first  place  Dante  must  be  named  here,  whose  sonnets' 
sequel  "Vita  Nuova"  was  translated  by  Rossetti  and  greatly  influenced 
the  sonnets  of  The  House  of  Life.  Further  I  found  the  influence 
of  the  Italian  poet  Cavalcanti  *)  (namely  in  Rossetti's  Italian  songs); 
nor  is  it  wonderful  that  Rossetti  loved  Italian  poetry,  when  we 
consider  that  his  father  was  a  full-blooded  Italian,  a  poet  himself  and 
a  Dante  commentator  of  some  fame.  Besides  Dante  we  find 
Shakespeare  (indeed  which  English  poet  is  not  influenced  more 
or  less  by  him !),  Browning,  Coleridge,  and  in  the  last  period  of 
his  career  Thomas  Chatterton,  who  influenced  Rossetti.  (William 
M.  Rossetti's  Preface  to  the  Collected  Works  of  D.  G.  Rossetti. 
London  1906.) 

It  is  not  the  place  here  to  enter  more  into  details  concer- 
ning the  further  influences  on  Rossetti.  I  think  I  have  shown 
sufficiently  clearly  in  the  foregoing  pages  that  Blake  already  in 
the  beginning  of  Rossetti's  artistic  career  had  a  strong  hold  on  his 
imagination  and  that  it  was  Blake  who  inclined  the  bend  of 
Rossetti's  genius  in  the  peculiar  direction  which  through  his  long 
artistic  career  it  was  never  to  leave.  It  was  indeed  Blake  who 
anticipated  the  Praeraphaelitic  movement  and  might  be  called  the 
spiritual  father  of  this  movement. 

But  though  Blake  stood  up  against  untruth  and  conventionality 
in   art,    his   too   fantastical    mind    and    the   unfortunate    outward 


*)  Guido  Cavalcanti,  born  in  Florence  about  1250,  was  a  friend  of 
Dante  and  a  poet  who  wrote  admirable  Sonnets  (translated  by  D.  G. 
Rossetti,  vol.  II,  116—163).  He  came  of  a  noble  family,  took  active  part  in 
the  struggles  between  theGuelfs  andGhibellines,  was  banished  to  an  unhealthy 
wild  district,  whence  he  returned  with  a  sickness  and  died  probably  in  1301. 


—    56     - 

circumstances  of  his  life  were  the  cause,  that  he  could  not  change 
the  current  conception  about  art;  the  genius  of  Rossetti  was 
wanted  to  mould  his  ideas  into  proper  form  and  have  them  accepted 
by  a  large  circle  of  artists. 


57    — 


List  of  Books  used. 


1.  Percy  H.  Bates.     The  English  Praeraphaelitic  Painters.  London  1899 

2.  A.  C.  Benson.    Rossetti.     London  1904  and  1906. 

3.  W.  Blake.  The  Lyrical  Poems  of  William  Blake.  Text  by  John  Sampson, 
Introduction  by  W.  Raleigh.    Oxford  1905. 

4.  W.  Blake.    The    Works  of   W.  Blake.    Poetic   symbolic  and  critical 
Ed.  by  E.  J.  Ellis  and  W.  B.  Yeats.     London  1893. 

5.  W.  Blake.  There  is  no  natural  Religion.  Privately  printed.  London  1886. 

6.  R.  Buchanan.    The  Fleshly  School  of  Poetry   and  other  Phenomena 
of  the  Day.     London  1872. 

7.  Henry    Dunn.      Recollections    of    D.    G.    Rossetti    and    his    Circle. 
London  1904. 

8.  Edwin  J.  Ellis.  The  Real  Blake.  A  Portrait  Biography.  London  1906. 

9.  i\  T.  Forsyth.    Religion  in  Recent  Art.    Manchester  1889. 

10.  A.  Gilchrist.    Life  of  William  Blake  with  Selections  from  his  Poems 
and  other  Writings  by  Alexander  Gilchrist.     London  1863  and  1880. 

11.  G.    Birbeck  Hill.     Letters   of   Dante   Gabriel    Rossetti    to    William 
Allingham.     London  1897. 

12.  J.  Knight.    Life  of  D.  G.  Rossetti.    London  1887. 

13.  R.  Muther.     Geschichte  der  Malerei  des  19.  Jahrhunderts.     Band  III. 
Munchen  1893  und  1894. 

14.  Max  Nordau.     Entartung.    Berlin  1892,  1893  und  1896. 

15.  W.  Pater.     Appreciations.    London  1889. 

16.  E.  Radford.    Rossetti.    Round  Table  Series  No.  6.  1886. 

17.  Helene  Richter.     William  Blake.    Strassburg  1906. 

18.  D.  G.  Rossetti.     Collected  Works  in  2  vols.   Ed.  by  W.  M.  Rossetti. 
London  1888. 

19.  D.  G.  Rossetti.     Thoughts   towards   Nature,  Literature   and  Art  (in 
the  Germ).     London  1851. 

20.  D.  G.  Rossetti.  Sir  Huge  the  Heron,  a  legendary  Tale  in  four  Parts. 
^Printed  for  private  circulation).    London  1843. 

21.  W.  M.  Rossetti.     Praeraphaelitic  Diaries  and  Letters.    London  1900. 

22.  W.  M.  Rossetti.  D.  G.  Rossetti  as  Designer  and  Writer.  London  1884. 

23.  W.  M.  Rossetti.  D.  G.  Rossetti,  his  Family  Letters.    London  189.5. 

24.  W.  M.  Rossetti.    Ruskin,  Rossetti,  Praeraphaelitism.     London   1889. 

25.  J.  Ruskin.     Praeraphaelitism.    London  1851. 


—     58     — 

26.  W.  Bell  Scott.     Autobiographical  Notes.     London  1892. 

27.  James  Smetham.  Life  of  William  Blake.  "Quarterly  Review".  Jan.  1882. 

28.  E.  C.  Stedman.     William  Blake,  Poet  and  Painter.  Essay  from  "The 
Critic"  1882. 

29.  F.  G.  Stephens.     Rossetti.    London  1894. 

30.  Ch.  A.  Swinburne.     William  Blake,  a  critical  Essay.    London  1858, 
1868,  1906. 

31.  F.Tatham.  Letters  of  William  Blake,  together  with  his  Life.  London  1906. 
82.  J.  Thomson.     Shelley,  a  Poem,  to  which  is  added  an   Essay  on  the 

Poems  of  W.  Blake  (privately  printed).     London  1884. 

33.  Waldschmldt.    Dante  Gabriel  Rossetti.    Jena  1904. 

34.  S.  Warren.     Compendium    of   the    theological  Writings   of  Emanuel 
Swedenborg.     London  1875  and  1901. 

35.  Granger  Watkin.     Robert  Browning  and  the  English  Pre-Raphaelites. 
(Dissertation).     Breslau  1908. 

36.  Th.  Watts.  The  Truth  about  Rossetti.  "Nineteenth  Century".  March  1883. 

37.  Charles  Wells.     Stories  after  Nature.     London  1822  and  1891. 

38.  Charles  Wells.     Joseph   and   his  Brethren.     London  1824  and  1876. 

39.  Esther  Wood.     Dante  Gabriel  Rossetti  and  the  Praeraphaelitic  Move- 
ment.    London  1894. 


I,  Johanna  Christina  Emerentia  Bassalik-de  Vries,  daughter 
of  Lambertus  and  Helena  de  Vries  was  born  in  Zwolle  (Holland) 
on  the  21|i  of  June  1874.  In  my  native  town  I  visited  the  girls 
high-school  for  seven  years.  Afterwards  I  followed  for  two  years 
the  lectures  on  philology  of  Prof.  H.  Bulbring  at  the  University 
of  Groningen  (Holland).  Then  I  went  to  England  as  a  teacher 
for  one  year  and  a  half,  and  from  there  to  Zurich,  where  in 
the  year  1906  I  passed  the  examination  of  maturity  (Maturitats- 
Examen).  From  that  time  I  studied  at  the  University  of  Zurich 
philology,  psychology,  and  philosophy.  My  principal  teachers 
were  Prof.  Th.  Vetter,  Prof.  F.  Schumann,  and  Prof.  G.  Starring. 
To  these  gentlemen  my  sincere  thanks  are  due.  Especially  I 
want  to  thank  Prof.  Th.  Vetter  for  his  kind  interest  and  assistance 
in  my  work. 


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